March 28, 2019
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HEY REF THE WIZARDRY OF OS
THE WIZARDRY OF OS
Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
There is way too much going on to take a deep dive into one or two topics. So let’s take some shallow dips into many different topics.
Almost every year, after exciting upsets in the first two rounds, some “expert” complains. The complaint goes something like this, “Sure it is great to have these upsets, but who wants to see these teams in the Sweet 16?” Well, we barely had any upsets and almost all the top seeds remain, which is partly why I am behind my wife in the house bracket pool. That’s okay though, I am still ahead of my 8 and 10 year, but barely.
I am craving someone to go beyond the lazy obvious analysis of LSU basketball from people that just started paying attention to this team. Oh really, LSU is missing their head coach? LSU has blown leads all year. Oh really, Maryland played zone and LSU didn’t attack? Did you watch Duke against UCF? They looked clueless on offense much of the time against UCF’s defense. Coach K is pretty good, right?
The situation surrounding LSU basketball is complicated, but the actual x’s and o’s of LSU this year are really simple. This is the same team we have watched all year. Will Wade said it after LSU lost to Florida at home. LSU’s success is based on three things. One, tremendous offensive rebounding. Two, enough stretches of connected, active defense to make a run at some point in the game. Three, tremendous play makers making plays at crucial times. The two glaring deficiencies are defensive rebounding and turnovers, not shooting as many claim. While LSU is streaky shooting from the outside, the outside shooting is not prevents them from being successful.
LSU lost to Florida State, Houston, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, and Florida twice this year. All of those games were close losses. In every one of those games, there were stretches in the game where LSU was completely out playing those five teams. But, the deficiencies (poor defensive rebounding and turnovers) kept the opponent in the game. Then down the stretch in those games the strengths were not able to bail LSU out.
I can’t imagine that this weekends games will be any different. LSU has won 28 games with its playmakers making more plays than their opponents. I doubt that will sustain them against Michigan State and Duke, but I know this team is going to keep swinging.
Pardon me if I seem vain for a moment. For two months, everyone has been focused on changing replay because of the end of the NFC Championship and I have been begging for someone to recognize that one official did not miss the call. A crew missed the call(s). Thank goodness Sean Payton is bringing it up at the NFL meeting. Officials are a team and need don’t need to be working with other officials for the first time in the biggest pressure moments.
I am glad the league is going to make the easy change and allow pass interference to be challenged. What I don’t understand is what is so controversial about an 8th official looking for missed calls. Every LSU fan knows there is a system in place in college. Delpit intercepts Mond. No call made on the field. The 8th official calls down and says Mond was down. The game continues. Agree or disagree with the call, the system is in place. It is just not that hard.
Finally, we are past the point of blaming hostile road environments, great SEC pitching, midweek morose, and baseball slumps. At this point, you are what your record says you are and you are what your run production says. LSU has an anemic offense.
The only reason to recognize that is Mainieri has to force the issue. When he has a runner on third and less than one out, the squeeze is the play. He needs to play for one run any chance he gets. Every player with speed that gets on base somehow needs to play.
I take solace in the knowledge that Mainieri will not wait. He will tinker and figure it out. LSU baseball fans also need to hope this year’s baseball team is a combination of 2017 LSU baseball and 2019 LSU gymnastics.
In 2017, Robertson, Deichmann, and Freeman were not very good at the start of the year. But they turned it around. Currently, Duplantis is under.300, Smith’s average is dropping like a rock, and Cabrera is not having an All-American season like LSU needs.
Certainly, the rest of the lineup needs to produce, but it is amazing the effect on the whole lineup when the heart of the lineup produces. When a pitcher is getting the best hitters up and down with weak contact, just imagine the confidence facing the bottom third. On the other hand, when the top of the lineup is making solid contact and stressing the pitcher, the hitting becomes contagious because the pitcher feels like a boxer on the ropes.
LSU gymnastics at the beginning of the year was a MASH unit. Seemingly everyone was coming off surgery, needing a week off to recover from a minor injury, or not performing at their best yet due to an injury. The team started to get healthy half way through the year and the last four weeks has performed like a national championship contender.
At different times, LSU’s pitchers have looked dominant. Hess, Henry, Hill, Walker, Marceaux could be amazing starters this year is they could get healthy at the same time. The bullpen could be great if Costello, Hilliard, Beck, Peterson, and Fontenot could be healthy and on their game at the same time.
Nobody was wrong to think this team can be amazing. Three weeks ago it looked like LSU didn’t have a pitcher who could throw strikes. Right now, every hitter takes strikes swings at balls and rolls over for weak contact. Hopefully, in three weeks the coaches can get the batter to hit the reset button and change their approach, while some more pitchers can get and stay healthy. I just have to believe that LSU has too much talent for that not to happen for the baseball team, just like it has happened for gymnastics.
BY DENNIS DEARIE
VETERAL LOUISIANA HS REFEREE
With not much fanfare LSU’s athletic dept. and the university’s administration made a humble and mutual agreement to snub the Women’s NIT tournament on March 18. Not much was made of this decision but for some reason “Hey Ref” is seeing RED! Stop and think for a very short few seconds and take in exactly what this snub not only looks like but what it is.
This decision isn’t like a slap in the face but more like a royal kick in the gladius maximus. The women’s program did in fact end on a four game losing skid but think back just two weeks before the end of the season and coach Nikki Fargas had her Tigers had a very respectable record of 16 – 9. Surely not a championship season at all I agree but to snub any post season tournament makes you appear like a spoiled little rich kid in saying “you’re not good enough for me to play with”!
How short sighted this decision was since you stick your nose up, refuse to participate and decline your athletes a chance to feel something good coming out of not so good season by LSU standards. As far as I’m concerned you cheapen those women’s efforts by telling them “you ain’t good enough to reap this reward even though you worked so very hard from the first day of practice”!
Everyone was smiling just two weeks before the end of the season as many sports “experts” were sure the Lady Tigers would win out those final few games and would then be in line for an at-large bid to play in the NCAA’s tournament that we all know ends with the crowning of a national champion. But what do you do if your season doesn’t turn out like you thought? In LSU’s case this season they take their ball home and refuse to come outside and play.
More often than naught the vast majority of schools find it’s to their best interest to play in a post season tournament as a way of rewarding those that put in the hard work. And we all know not every school can run the tables and end the season undefeated so some schools don’t make the cut and aren’t invited. This isn’t the case at LSU this year, they’ve told their women athletes their hard work makes no difference to them and to go home and wait until next year.
I look at this as a missed opportunity to show some recruits exactly what it would be like to come to Baton Rouge and play for LSU. It’s a missed opportunity to show off your program and use the experience as a stepping stone to bring in more and better talent. We are all very much aware how hard it is to get recruits that want to use their talents to get an education. Those that recruit ABOVE BOARD won’t have this invitation to play in the 2019 NIT tournament in their arsenal while knocking on doors of a perspective student-athletes asking for that player to commit to LSU.
To me it’s a huge mistake that can never be righted. You don’t get many chances to showcase your school and program. I feel the women that played this year deserved to play in a post season tournament and this refusal to play in the NIT was a stab to the back to every player. So, LSU loses but the players are the ones that will be paying the price. Isn’t it also true that all SEC teams that play in bowl games, post season tournaments and the like put all the money into a single account then divide the spoils among all the schools? So, if other schools did this causing LSU to be out a million dollars wouldn’t we have a bunch of angry coon-asses? Well, of course and don’t think it wouldn’t matter to all the other schools that are out of any extra cash.
I just wished the powers that be at LSU would’ve thought of the advantages of giving those that have sacrificed so much to be a part of this women’s team something of an award by allowing them to experience being part of a tournament team. It builds friendships among those players that’ll last a lifetime and who knows these Tigers could’ve marched all the way and win the tournament. But we’ll never know. Nope, all we have here in a missed opportunity to reward the players for all their hard work this year.
And to give a very short answer to “THE” question; “YES, I think the NFL is trying their best to eliminate on field game officials”. Watching the reports from the owner’s meetings it’s very clear. If things continue the way they’re going you’ll only see one or two stripped shirts on the field since the owners think letting coaches challenge JUDGEMENT calls is the smart thing to do. Of course the call in the Rams-Saints game was blown to high heaven. But what I’ve noticed going on in the industry is this continued getting away from what is the most essential thing for a person to become a better official. And that simply is working games with common sense.
While at an official’s camp at UCLA I was lucky to be sitting at the same table as Ed Hochuli who just retired from the NFL after a 28 season career. I remember asking this question; “What makes a good official great”? He didn’t hesitate as he answered “A guy that is able to take book sense and turn it into common sense and be firm in the way he handles coaches”!
He said one year there was a guy in his crew “that always scored 100 on the tests, could explain every rule inside and out but couldn’t apply the rules to the action on the field”. I find too many guys over officiate games thinking coaches respect their knowledge of the rules. But in reality coaches just want a guy who hustles on every play and is in the right spot to make the call. Too many times officials are so wrapped up into getting to the next level that they forget the level of play they’re working.
Yes, it’s true, we blow calls every game. It bothers the hell out of me when I make a stupid mistake. I feel I let the crew down and that’s the other weakness of today’s officials. Most of these “newbies” call games and feel like they are the only official on the field. They can’t and won’t grasp the reality that they are part of a crew of officials and not an island out on the football field. They explode when a member of that night’s crew makes a mistake yet make so many excuses when they blow a call it would be hilarious if it weren’t so disgusting to be a part of that crew.
So, in the very near future I think we’ll see a couple guys on the field to do just one thing; spot the ball. All calls and judgement will come via the press box. And many will cheer when this happens or at least until their team is wronged by the call coming from somebody’s I-Phone!
Till next week…
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