On Fudging Flagrants

If you read Syracuse blogs you'd think that yesterday's 66-60 victory over the Orange was a gift from the refs; the result of a questionable flagrant foul call against 'Cuse's Kris Joseph with 17 seconds left. Let alone the fact that Cards fans are the last group to have sympathy for poor refereeing, the logic is flawed for a couple of reasons.

First, UofL was winning by two when the foul happened. Syracuse was in a must-foul situation, hence Joseph's over-handsiness. Smith knocked down the two freebies, and then was fouled again when the Cards received the ball back. He missed both of those. So essentially Syracuse got the ball back down 4, exactly where they expected to be when they committed the foul to begin with.

Second, while it certainly wasn't malicious or violent, I don't think it was that bad a call. As we said before, Smith snagged the key rebound, and down two, they had to foul. Joseph yanked Smith by the shoulder, and with a little bit of acting on Jerry's part, he went down hard. Joseph certainly wasn't going for the ball, ergo, an intentional foul could be warranted. I'm not saying it wasn't questionable, I'm just saying it's not the worst call I've ever seen, like, I dunno, a ball going out of bounds off a player's head yet that team being rewarded the ball back.

It was a hard-fought victory, so forgive me for being a little sensitive to those trying to diminish it.