Senior Day
by Telemachus on Mar 9, 2008 4:19 AM PST
in Basketball
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PrintI guess the underclassmen wanted to make sure Lorenzo Mata-Real remembered Senior Day. It was truly memorable, despite the incredible comeback Stanford win for the Pac-10 Championship just two days earlier. The collective Bruins Nation has shaved off a couple of hundred years of life after this week.
I just added a couple of additional clips to the highlights posted yesterday. The first is Cal's turnover in slow-motion to address the non-call. In my opinion, Westbrook cleanly slapped the ball from Anderson. The idiot Lizard said he clearly saw the hacking motion, uh, did you see contact? As you watch the slo-mo, the ball gets knocked loose and then Anderson dives to the ground as he desperately tries to get the ball back, flailing his arms and hits the ball out of bounds. He was not "tackled." While Westbrook's left arm grazes Anderson's back that didn't cause him to fall. It looks to me that Westbrook was ready to grab Anderson for the foul, but as soon as the ball got loose, he took his hand off.
The second clip just has a couple angles on Shipp's incredible shot, more to admire, rather than to answer the legality of the shot. I'll let others deal with that. I've heard contradictory reports on what Bill McCabe has said about it.
At this point, I just want to enjoy those magical 20.5 seconds. Well, technically 19.8 seconds, since the officials decided to put 0.7 seconds back on. How they determined that the ball took 0.8 seconds to land is beyond me. Regardless, here is the magical sequence with no edits.
Lastly, here is the last 0.7 seconds (Cals' last chance), in case you hadn't found it yet.
Truly a game to remember.
One last thing, let's not forget it was Senior Day. Along with today, Matt Lee has many things to remember. As for Lorenzo Mata-Real, Coach Howland's first 4-year player to graduate here's a little special something I cooked up just for the occassion. Lorenzo, we all wish you well.
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Team of Destiny
Of course I wish we could go back to the old days when games at Pauley were decided early and the only thing in question was whether the Bruins would break the century mark. But those days are gone forever with players jumping to the NBA.
After seeing the last two pac 10 games I get the feeling that this may be a team of destiny. I realize that it is early and the NCAA tourny hasn't even started yet but I like our chances this year. If the team keeps playing with the heart it has shown in the Stanford and Cal games they will be very hard to beat. Now if they can just start playing well before the last minute I would feel a lot calmer.
In closing I would like to thank Mata for being such a hard worker and team player. It has been a pleasure to see you in a Bruin uniform playing your heart out week in week out. Best of luck big guy.
BruceBruinFan
by BruceBruinFan on Mar 9, 2008 9:31 AM PST reply actions
You, my friend,
Thanks for the slo-mo's. I was out-voted on the sound, so I had to hear Lizard and Burnt prattle on about the injustice of it all. Great to see that it wasn't anything of the sort.
Great Tribute to LMR and the Calls
The non-call on Anderson was the correct call!!
As for Shipp's shot, well the rule should be changed, but it is hard to tell, it does look it goes over the corner of the backboard. But calls go for and against teams all throughout a game.
If I was Anderson
It looks to me like Westbrook stripped him clean, then the ball was tapped out of bounds by Anderson. Given that our 2 guys guarding him are dark skinned and Anderson is pasty white, you can actually see this from the first camera angle. There might be question whether or not Shipp touched it at the last second (as they question on ESPN), but the ball doesn't change speed or trajectory after Anderson touched it.
I don't know HOW the refs got that one right, but I really think they did, unlike the call on the Collison block Thursday night.
Awesome job Tele!
Oh, they bitched
Anderson was just as adamant.
"They clearly tackled me, maybe hit me, and I fell to the ground looking for the foul and it didn't go our way," he said. "But that's UCLA, number (three) in the country and they're going to get respect. That's just frustrating, really frustrating."
And it looks like the video shows that they are bitching about nothing.
"Refs gift wrap another UCLA win. Wow."
Well, that's one of the comments on the Texas U b-ball site, burntorangenation.com with more expressing much the same sentiment.
Even that hack Kuwada in the OC Fishwrap saw fit to propagate this crap in his article today:
Josh Shipp makes the winning basket from behind the glass in the Bruins' 81-80 victory. That shot and other calls raise questions.
Those were the salient questions after UCLA's 81-80 victory over Cal on Saturday. The winning points came on a shot from behind the backboard by Josh Shipp with one second remaining. Before that, Cal turned over the ball on a "no-call" by Pac-10 officials, who had a rough couple of days at Pauley Pavilion.
Bill McCabe, the Pac-10 supervisor of officials, concurred. ''If you shoot the ball over the backboard," he said, "it's out of bounds."
McCabe, who was questioned about a foul call late in the Bruins' victory over Stanford on Thursday that allowed UCLA to send the game into overtime, asked the officials (Dave Libbey, Don McAlister and Tom Wood) after Saturday's game what they saw on the play.
"It comes right over the corner," McCabe said. "After the game the official said it was too close to call."
But to the Bruins, there was no question whether the shot went over the top of the backboard and not behind it.
"I was trying to get on the other (front) side of the backboard but was cut off," Shipp said. "I was forced to shoot it from the other side. It was one of those H-O-R-S-E shots. I'm lucky I play H-O-R-S-E. I was fortunate enough to have it go down for me. ...
But was it within the rules? "They counted it," Shipp replied.
"I didn't think it was going to come down to throwing it over the backboard to get it in, but, hey, we'll take it," said Kevin Love, who led the Bruins with 22 points.
While we may be (correctly) labeling this team as one of destiny, clearly the sinister forces of the MSM and our adversaries are putting stock in the fact that they got jobbed and homered by a couple of bad calls.
The irony is, that Cal can defeat Washington and get another shot at us. If they do, no doubt, they will come out with their guns blazing.
So, either way you look at it, the Bruin's forst tournament game will be a matter of pay-back, either us dealing it out to the ball-in-the-face thughs from the Northwest or Da-Bearz looking to square their ledger and add at least one highlight win to their pathetic season.
Like ol' Jim Harrick said, "it's gonna be a real ball-burner."
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by whp68 on Mar 9, 2008 10:16 AM PDT reply actions
Thoughts on the calls
Was it out on Anderson? I couldn't tell. I did see his hand extended past Westbrook's, and it could be that he touched it. I do have to say, as with the foul, that we were very fortunate. The usual call on that would have been to award Cal the ball. The ref would have rationalized it by saying it was in the gray area of being a foul, and I cannot reward the defense the ball on a 50-50 foul call followed by a 50-50 out of bounds.
As to Shipp's shot, two points here: (1) The ball did not go over the back of the backboard, it went over a corner and thus did not violate the rule. (2) Even if it did go over the back, that rule should be modified because that should not be an illegal shot. I think the rule is there (and I've only seen it called) to prevent the offense from maintaining possession when shots bounce off the rim and head over the backboard. Shots from behind the plane that go in are just good shots.
We were fortunate to be awarded the ball on another call that was in the gray area. That happens all the time, many times per game. We made a shot and won. No need to make this into a media circus. And Cal should stop whining. One marginal call is not the travesty they are making it out to be.
I can't believe it
- On the swipe, Anderson's arms don't move except in reaction to the ball coming loose. Westbrook appears to have gotten him cleanly (this was the part I thought was a foul without replay). Either way, none of the officials are in a position to see what happened, and you can't call what you don't see, or, for that matter, hear. Hand on ball sounds different than hand on arm. Downward swipe with that slapping sound would have had to draw a whistle. We can only assume, then, that he didn't hear one. Unbelievably, they got this call right.
- As the ball came loose, it bounces off Anderson's knee to the ground. On the rebound, Westbrook slaps it to the ground again, and Anderson begins his dive (trying to draw the call, as he later admits. Play the game, flopper). He reaches for the ball on the way back up and pokes it out of bounds. It appears Shipp takes an upward swipe at it but makes no contact as the speed and trajectory are unchanged. Out of bounds on Anderson.
Funny thing - Same reaction here
One additional thing that got my attention had to do with Anderson's fall - specifically in the way that Anderson fell, taken together with the portion of his postgame statement stating that he fell in an attempt to draw the foul.
The first thing to say is that there was some contact between Westbrook's left hand and Anderson's back/behind; the second camera angle shows rippling in Anderson's jersey that is consistent with Westbrook's hand movements starting at a certain point. (the following may be a bit long/unclear or unartfully explained. Forgive me as it is late - nearly 3am here)
The first place to start is with Anderson's positioning; he was moving toward the baseline, with his knees bent and body slightly leaning toward the baseline in order to catch the inbounds. At the point that the catch was made, the first camera angle shows that Westbrook's left hand was either on or very close to Anderson's back - the second angle, as I noted earlier, shows that Westbrook made contact at a certain spot, that is to say that his hand was not on the back that entire time. The movements of Anderson's jersey shows that Westbrook touches Anderson's back (or jersey, at least) approximately at the waistband of the shorts, just below the waist.
My thought has to do with how Anderson would have naturally reacted to an application of force at that spot on his body. The spot where Westbrook's hand made contact was just below where the back meets the pelvis/behind (to get what I am talking about, try putting your hands on your lower back and arching your back next time you stand up. You should notice where your back and pelvis connect/flex. the contact occurs just below this point). Considering the point of contact, I would expect a push with sufficient force to move Anderson to have pushed his lower body forward, or to have stayed relatively stationary while his knees bent in order to regain stability. In fact, the first camera angle shows Anderson's butt/lower body moving jerking backward after the contact was made, with the 'result' being that the part of his body right about where the forward force was applied (within about an inch vertically) jerks backward while he begins to dive forward with his upper body.
To get the sort of movement that Anderson exhibited (lower body squat, butt moving backward, with his upper body diving forward) from an external force, my understanding (to be fair, I was a north campus major for a reason) is that the force (push) would have to have been applied to his mid-to-upper back, further up than Westbrook's hand was at any time when near Anderson's back.
Whether or not the incidental contact would be sufficient to draw a foul, it does not appear to have caused Anderson to dive, and certainly was not of an apparent force or location to have "tackled" Anderson, as was his original claim.
I guess that means...
The only thing I needed to see was that Anderson didn't start moving down until the ball was loose and had hit his knee. That combined with his admission that he was trying to draw a foul means that he took a dive. Great analysis, but they'll never read it. It's far easier to play the victim card.
Back and to the left
Telemachus...
Cal needs to stop whining...
Thanks for the montage of clips and pictures of Mata..right after I watched it I looked out of my window to check the weather and who was standing on the street corner in front of my apartment but LMR himself! I went out to say hi and congratulate him! Nicest guy ever...sad to see him go!
Go Bruins!
ok, i give up.
Problems
Telemachus
Just curious, is there a way a Geezer without knowledge of Facebook can get a message to LMR?
Anyone know if he reads here?
I've been a Bruin for 46 years, a fan for more and LMR is in my handful of very favorite UCLA student athletes. I'd love to get a message to him.
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