BlueIsBetter wrote:
No matter why the refs are doing it, Jimmer needs to recognize how the refs are calling the game. If they aren't going to give him those calls, he needs to look to score/contribute in other ways.
I was kind of bugged last night at the game because the whole game Jimmer was complaining to the refs about non-calls, even a possession or two after the no-call. It made him look whiny. When you don't get that call three times in a row, you need to change what you are doing, cuz the refs aren't going to change what they are doing.
agreed. If the refs are letting them play physical against you, stop taking elbows and start lowering shoulders. He is going to encounter much more physical play than Air Force in the NBA. Might as well learn to do it now.
I apologize in advance for this tirade on a perhaps tired topic, but the intrepid are invited to read on. :evil:
Jimmer is more than capable of playing in a rough, contact-heavy contest. Indeed, he has done it in games at prisons and in some Eastern league where no fouls are called, or so I have heard. He supposedly participated in those activities with his father and older brother. So I wouldn't say that Jimmer needs to toughen up. I think he is justified in being frustrated that his defenders are allowed more freedom to bump, grab, and throw a knee into him, than his own team is allowed when BYU is playing defense. This has not just been imagined, but is a true and increasing double standard. If these MWC officials do not like the number of scoring attempts (or-- opportunities to draw foul calls, if you will), then that is simply too bad for them, and the damn MWC. It is not their right to exert double standards and leave the league's MVP unprotected. It is not their right to try to force Jimmer to learn to score in different ways, simply because league opponents do not have the knack, or the confidence, or the WILL to play like Jimmer does. It is not Jimmer's, or BYU's responsibility to see that other players make the same volume of FGA per game, or the same number of inside drive attempts per game as Jimmer does, or to slow down Jimmer's play, just to provide the conference's desired "competitive balance." What is this anyway, some kind of Scoring-Opportunity-Marxism? I believe that if a treasure like Fredette were playing at UNLV, or at SDSU, that our illustrious conference would be trying to protect him for the value and recognition that he brings the league. Instead, he is at BYU and they are punishing him. :angry: To cap this paragraph, the fact that Jimmer has put up some prayer shots when effectively covered, in no way invalidates the argument above, and is not what I am talking about. :roll:
At any rate, I am sure that Jimmer would have no problem with a system that officiates all players the same way, even if it meant a bruising free-for-all slug-fest. BYU knows from experience that they will not be officiated leniently, or equitably in this pathetic league, and so they have coached a more gentlemanly style, in which they leap straight up to block, get set early to take a charge, and employ only light touch to keep track of a ball carrier's movements. Cougars are not coached to grab, shove, trip, chop, and body check with injurious force. Other teams do prepare this way for BYU, and they boast about it afterwards: "we were determined to make him feel it every time he tried to cut in." The last quote was from an AF forward (sorry, I don't have the name, but that is what he said, even though AF's coached claimed when asked that they did not prepare any differently for Jimmer than they did for any other player). By the way, did you all take note of the no-call when an AF defender cut into Jimmer just after he had given his assigned defender the slip on a cross-over to the left lane. The thrown knee was brutal and both players went down in blood and glory, and amazingly, with no call at all. They knew that they could not construe a charge against Jimmer, but a no call? :sulk: Wyoming and Utah players have made similar post-game comments, and you all can remember Coach Boylen making pre-emptive claims after the last game that JImmer deserves it because of his so called physical play, and "he is so hard to officiate." I know that Araujo used to make cheap shots in retaliation for the same, but I think we can all agree that he was an exception, and that he was not coached to do that.
Any way, I do not agree with the suggestion that Jimmer needs to toughen up and stop whining. He is a national star now, and he should have some clout to call refs out for their outrageous double standards, just like Ty Detmer did in football when he was with us. The MWC is not only trying to pretend that Jimmer's star status does not exist, but they are acting as though they believe that they can make his stardom go away. And we all know that that is what the conference wants. Indeed, they must feel some protection of cover in this officiating scandal, due to the very same television non-coverage that they bumbled into, and which has induced BYU's separation. In the words of Elmer Fudd: Good widdance to bad wubbish!!!!!!!!! :crazy:
There now. I feel a little bit better for having vented.
GO COUGS!!! GO JIMMER!!! ;)
