to all the bruin haters

the cal game

people have been hating on josh shipp's unbelievable shot with 1.5 seconds left, which can be seen here. particularly, haters claim that NCAA rule 7, section 1, article 3 makes it an illegal shot because "the ball shall be out of bounds when it passes over the backboard from any direction."

ok, first, bill mccabe (the pac-10 supervisor of the refs) said it was a close call as it was too quick and it passed the corner.

"It comes right over the corner," McCabe said. "After the game, the official said it was too close to call."

second, rule 7 is entitled, "out of bounds and the throw in." there is a separate rule (rule 5) entitled, "scoring and timing regulations." thus, based on where the over the backboard rule falls, it only applies during the throw in and not during scoring.

so stop your whining.

i will admit though that while i am a homer, i find it interesting that there was no technical called when the bench stormed the court with .1 (which was later reset to .7) second left in the game. i think it interesting too that there was no call for shipp punching the ball out of bounds right before that. but then again, the home team usually gets calls its way.

either way, cal should have never allowed ucla to erase its lead.


the furd game

people have also been hating on the foul called against lawrence hill when he blocked darren collison's shot in the last few seconds of the stanford game on thursday.

people, the foul was not when hill blocked the ball -- yep, i saw the clip, which can be seen here, since my last entry. the block was clean. the foul, however, was for contact with the body.

also, that mccabe guy admits, that while he thought it should not have been called because of the close game, that it was still a foul. to be exact, he said: "There was body contact, but it's not a strong call, not a game-appropriate call. It's not an incorrect call and that doesn't make it wrong. But I want solid calls." (Emphasis added.)

as an aside, per the la times:

Earlier this year, McCabe had defended game officials for not calling an intentional foul on Washington's Tim Morris on an inbounds play where Morris threw a pass directly into the face of UCLA forward Alfred Aboya.

hmmmm....

finally, these two gems from collison and hill per the la times:

It was a hard-earned win and Collison was honest about it. The foul call on Lawrence Hill at the end of regulation? "I was fortunate to get a foul on that call," Collison said. "I heard it was a makeup."

Three of Collison's teammates -- Love, Mbah a Moute and Westbrook -- were telling Collison "shhh." But Hill didn't complain. "He drew contact when he went to the basket," Hill said. "It was still on him to make the free throws." (Emphasis added.)

so yes, bruins deserved both wins.

GO BRUINS!