Northern Iowa U. Game thread 11/22/17

[tirebyter]

Why do they call ticky tack fouls? Play ball.

[muskieman]

Jones with 2 FTs is big but this game is still undetermined. Cuz finally gets his 5th so X can play everyone straight up.

[muskieman]

the refs are not suppose to ice the player

[lionelchalmers0]

the refs are not suppose to ice the player

And again

[muskieman]

It was the X D and Q's fts at the end Good win and Santa will bring all good gift's to the players this season. One blemish on the ooc and that team is the story of the season

[bluegrass]

Q has to have the greatest disparity between free throw percentage and 3-point percentage of any player I've ever seen. This is a very good foul shooting team fortunately.

[ChitownSteve]

Byron is losing it on the radio about the officiating. 5 fouls+ 2 travels called on Xavier. Just now th first foul on uni

Xavier has shot 302 free throws this year.
Opponents 216.

The refs cant always be on the Muskies side.

That can be a misleading statistic.

For example, up until the final 1:47 of the game, UNI shot 14 FT's to 9 for X. Then, in the final 1:47 UNI fouled X on five separate occasions, leading to X shooting 10 FT's down the stretch. Therefore, at the end of the game X outshot UNI from the line 19-14. However, had UNI possessed the lead, X never would have had more FT's than UNI, and UNI would have padded its FT advantage.

Teams with good records shoot an inordinate number of FT's in the last two minutes of games. Good teams usually lead heading into the final 2 minutes, when foul-a-thons break out in the vast majority of their contests.

302-216=86. Probably safe to say that X shots about 6 more FT's in the final two minutes of a game than its opponents due to the intentional fouls (which are treated as common fouls) as opponents attempt to catch up. 12 wins x 6 = 72 - 6 (the loss) = 66 additional FT's likely attributable to those clear "Stop the clock, catch up" fouls.

So maybe X has a season long advantage of 20 or so FT's (86 - 66 = 20) during the first 38 minutes of games. A bit of a hypothesis here, but grounded in watching enough College Basketball since Jimmy V deployed the "unintentional, intentional" fouling tactic to know what customarily occurs down the stretch.

A disparity is to be expected for teams with winning records. Basketball fouling strategy embeds the differential.

[madness31]

X was incredibly lucky to get the W. If Bluiett didn't foul out I doubt X would have won. He played absolutely terrible other than rebounding. The shot selection and turnovers was pure ignorance. Mack needs to lay down the law and tell Q to never shoot a 3 with more than 4 seconds left on the shot or game clock. There is no excuse for him to ever take that shot with any time remaining. I would rather have O'mara take that shot or just about anyone else on the planet.

Officials were just bad. They missed fouls that should have benefited both teams and made up many calls in favor of UNI. The close game however was much more related to X just playing stupid. The team took turns taking bad shots and making other offensive and defensive errors.

Despite the bad play and bad officiating there were many big time shots today. The team found a way to win. Q was fantastic at the line and I love his ability to get to the rim and find open teammates. He is having a great year but he needs to stop shooting 3s. Nice to see Macura have a good offensive showing as well as create extra possessions.

[X-lucidity]

Does Madness watch the same game we all watch... Parallel universe maybe...?

[kyzrex]

“Incredibly lucky”?

How about skilled, talented, gutsy, or just plain, good?

This was a really BIG win, in my eyes. On the road, hostile environment, behind early in the game, got a lead, gave up the lead, got the lead back, put it away by shooting clutch free throws and making some clutch 3point shots down the streatch......all with their best player not having a good night and the oppositions best player having a great night.

What a Christmas present to the Xavier Nation!



MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! And God Bless US, Everyone!