<p>I heard a rumor that he's already not going to class. Not sure at all if that's accurate or not though.</p>
<p>ha i wouldnt be surprised</p>
<p>lux...and I do believe Coach Roy apologized personally to State's coach for Lawson's bucket and it hasn't happened again since. In fact, UNC has been overly restrained in that respect. I would think that since Georgetown was basically given Vandy's Elite Eight spot (regardless of 'let 'em play'), their players would have been a little more mindful of etiquette and good sportsmanship.</p>
<p>And YOU are wrong about when starters are pulled. No winning coach is obligated to pull starters when the losing coach still has their in the game (and especially when they are still fouling). The pot calling the kettle black is Coach K commenting on Tyler Hansbrough's injury, basically stating that he should have been there in the first place. I agree it was legitimate for Coach K to make the decision to keep his starters in (as if he COULD remove them anyway...imagine the alumni howl), but given that decision and his propensity to fight for time on the clock, where does Coach K get off commenting on UNC starters and Coach Roy's decision to keep them on the floor?</p>
<p>btw...I'm not too happy with Lawson either. Definitely not the contributor as of late.</p>
<p>I'm not at all wrong about that. In huge blowouts, it is almost always the winning coach who pulls his starters first. In fact, a losing coach pulling his starters would seem to go against the very values which sports are supposed to teach (keep fighting no matter how long the odds, etc.). Whereas, the winning coach removes his starters as a gesture of class and sportsmanship. It makes no sense for a losing coach to be expected to remove his starters when the other team's are still in the game, as this would only make the blow out worse. </p>
<p>To put it simply, no coach will ever be criticized (outside of K's petty fantasy world) for leaving his starters in and playing hard even when he's getting blown out. Winning coaches, on the other hand, WILL be criticized for leaving starters in til the end when they are winning a game by 40. </p>
<p>You saying that no winning coach is obligated to pull his starters when the losing coach still has his in the game is silly for two reasons: 1) The same argument sounds just as good for the losing coach 2) If for example, Roy tried to use that excuse to rationalize keeping starters in til the end against, say, Pfeiffer, people would laugh at him, since the Pfeiffer starters probably aren't even as good as the worst players on UNC. The losing team certainly is justified in trying to make the game as competitive as possible, the winning team isn't justified in running up the score as much as possible. </p>
<p>I'm not saying that the losing coach never removes his players first (In fact, it probably happens a fair amount). The point is that there isn't nearly as much of an understood "policy" on this as you imply, and if one exists at all, the "onus" definitely falls more on the winning coach than the losing one.</p>
<p>Also, don't interpret this as any kind of defense of Rat K, because as I've said, none of this even applied to the Duke-UNC situation. His comments were just him being petty and bitter.</p>
<p>lux...watched a lot of b-ball (given that I'm pretty much ancient) and know some coaches. Loser's gotta wave the white flag...that's the way it works. Btw...we are not talking blowouts are we. We are talking the Georgetown game and the Duke game. Decision in both seemed obvious, but neither game was a blowout.</p>
<p>ok... I've both played and watched a lot of basketball and known plenty of coaches and high-level players myself. </p>
<p>That isn't the way it works. In fact, this disagreement just illustrates that there really ISN'T any widely accepted or understood protocol on this issue.</p>
<p>Yes, we are talking about blowouts, because you kept implying that there was some widely accepted protocol for removing starters in a blowout, which is just not true, and especially not in the way you described... I already stated that in the Duke game there was no obligation for EITHER coach to remove starters because the game was within 10 points or so. Anything can still happen within that margin. See: the Duke-Maryland game a few years ago, or the game Roy referred to in the press conference. </p>
<p>If Coach K ran up the score and beat some tiny school by 60 while leaving his starters in the entire game and justified it by saying the other team never waved the white flag, do you honestly think people would say "oh, ok then, that's fine"?</p>
<p>lux - I think we are talking about two different situations. You are talking a blowout...I'm talking about a game where the decision seems obvious, but definitely NOT a blowout. In that case, if the losing coach still has his starters in, the winning coach is not obligated to throw them a bone. That would be an unreasonable expectation.</p>
<p>Btw...don't you think it would be brutally insulting for a winning coach to put their bench in to play a floor full of starters who are losing?? Rub a little salt in the wound, is that what you say?</p>
<p>Yeah, you're right, we are talking about two different situations. Sorry if I interpreted your comments wrong.</p>
<p>While the outcomes were pretty much decided in both the Georgetown and Duke games, they were still close enough for a "miracle" to be possible. So, I don't think EITHER coach should be expected to remove his starters, and in most cases like this, neither does. For example, Dewey Burke didn't play last night at the end, nor should he have. </p>
<p>Saying that the winning coach removing his starters to play against the losing team's starters is brutally insulting just tells me that maybe you haven't watched/been around as much basketball as you claim. This happens ALL the time, I've played in tons of games in this exact situation. It's not at all insulting... it just shows that the winning coach has class and is not trying to run up the score. Most of the time when this happens, of course, the losing coach will then follow suit.</p>
<p>Rubbing a little salt in the wound would be leaving the starters in to make the score as lopsided as possible.</p>
<p>I'm sorry lux...I've just haven't 'observed' a winning coach remove all his starters when a losing coach has his in the game still playing full out to win. I don't think it's my 'inexperience' either. ;) But maybe you are right. Did you play college ball btw?</p>
<p>Didn't play college ball, but I did get some division II scholarship offers. Decided I'd rather be at UNC :)</p>
<p>I did play the highest level competition in high school/AAU ball though, including against more than a few guys who were All-America or All-ACC this year.</p>
<p>Outstanding lux! (Also outstanding that you chose UNC-CH. My husband did a similar thing, opting to wrestle down a division (Div II back in the day) so that he could get a quality education at a small engineering school that he had always dreamed of attending. He put the education first too...can't go wrong with that plan.)</p>
<p>Since you are a basketball player, I have a question. What did you think when the Georgetown player changed his pivot foot? To my eye, blatant travel. Do you agree with 'let 'em play' when it's blatant and decides the game? I'm really bugged about that one.</p>
<p>Does anyone have a source for the basketball etiquette or is it just stuff you're pulling from out of nowhere?</p>
<p>I'm not trying to pick a fight, I'm just looking for a link or something.</p>
<p>does this work?</p>
<p>1.2 under "basketball"</p>
<p>it doesnt cover everything, obviously but it applies to the georgetown player we were talking about</p>
<p>thank you</p>
<p>So would you consider LT's record-breaking TD last year unethical? I've never heard anyone say that before.</p>
<p>What? That was a season record, not a game record. They were still trying to win ball games. It wasn't like they were up 50 each week and just handing it off to Ladanian to boost his stats.</p>
<p>In that game against Denver they were up by about 20 points with a couple of minutes left. They recovered a fumble at Denver's 5. Instead of taking a kneel they went for it.</p>
<p>Hmmm... I don't remember the game specifically. It depends how much time was left. If they could have run out the clock by taking kneels, then yes, it was probably poor sportsmanship.</p>
<p>aah the world we live in now, where everyone thinks there is a link for everything...lol! The unwritten rules have been around since the beginning of the game, most are so generally accepted that it is industry wide and consistently applied. I would venture some 'rules', especially at the high school and lower levels may have a regional or local twist to them.</p>
<p>My understanding has always been that the losing coach makes some gesture (pulling starters for one) that indicates he has conceded the game and the winning coach responds by doing whatever it takes to avoid running the score up on them. UNC did get into a bit of a bind earlier in the season when one of our players (don't remember the game or the player, just the incident...but I think it was maybe Arizona or Florida State?) made points in the last minutes of a blowout game. If I remember correctly, the losing coach had pulled starters before the points. After the game, he asked Coach Roy why he was running up points on him...and Coach Roy apologized. There was quite a bit of criticism in the press about the points too. The final points in the NC State game were not publicly criticized because the clock was running out as Terry was running across the court and his dunk was viewed as more of a celebration of the ACC win, not a desire to rub State's nose in it. Furthermore, when he scored, UNC was only winning by 7 points and everyone was still playing to win.</p>
<p>My point is if UNC has to take the heat for this sort of thing, so should Georgetown. But I'm straining my ears....and hearing nothing...</p>
<p>Idmom, to answer your question about my opinion of the Georgetown travel:</p>
<p>It definitely was a travel. Although, it wasn't as simple as him just lifting his pivot foot, as some people keep saying, because you ARE, of course, allowed to do that--how else would you take a jump shot? The issue is that he took an extra step/shuffled his other foot. </p>
<p>To address your question specifically, I don't necessarily think it was a matter of the refs deciding beforehand that they were just going to "let 'em play." In fact, I'm not sure if the refs even realized it was a travel at all, they honestly might just have missed it. Let's remember that we have the advantage sitting on our couches of 20 different replays, in slow motion, of different angles, overhead views, no huge guys standing in front of us, etc. The fact is that refs make mistakes. It will and does happen every game, that's just part of sports. It's unfortunate that in this case it came on the last play, although some other call from the beginning of the game might have resulted in two extra points for one of the teams as well--it's just not as blatant. </p>
<p>There was a column I read the day after the game, I can't remember whose? Basically the point of it was that it doesn't matter if it was or wasn't a travel, what matters is that it wasn't CALLED a travel. In Basketball, facts are irrelevant, it's the calls that count...and while this is frustrating, that's the reality that every player and coach accepts when they step on the floor. Bad calls happen--they're part of the game, just as much as jump shots, dunks, and behind the back passes. I tend to agree with him.</p>
<p>I haven't heard anyone blame the travel on lifting the pivot foot...just comments that he changed pivot foots (pivoted on one foot, then pivoted on the other...which constituted a step). </p>
<p>I considered that perhaps the travel was missed; but I think the more likely scenario is the refs didn't want the outcome of the game determined by their call (turning over the ball to Vandy and essentially ended Georgetown's chances). Much more palatable for the outcome to be determined by their LACK of action unfortunately.</p>