Fugly

I witnessed ISU's fugly win over Kansas today. It epitomized everything that is wrong with women's basketball.

Little of the ugliness was ISU's fault. Rather, it was the result of KU's hideous style of play, and the ref's collective willingness to allow it. KU's philosophy on both ends of the floor is to imitate
as much contact as possible, whether hacking and pushing on defense or
driving to the basket on offense. When the ref's eat the whistle, it
works, the game slows to a crawl, neither team can score (KU has lousy
shooters, off the dribble or not) and fans, having paid cash expecting
something interesting, have to witness butchery instead.

When used by teams with talent (i.e. Baylor) this plan works well. When you don't have talent, it's just hard to watch.

I
am most puzzled why so many crews reward this style by eating their
whistles. It isn't subtle. Bodies flying, shots missing by three feet,
players piling up in the lane like anInterstate highway on a foggy day,
yet play goes on, or a meek travel is whistled as a pathetic "make-up".
Odd. It's almost as if they don't want to blow the whistle so they
won't be accused of coddling the ladies. Let 'em duke it out; it'll
toughen them up. It's not justKU ; it is the majority of the women's
games I stumble across on the telly. Rough play removes all the joy
from basketball, regardless of gender, but the women suffer the most.

Proper officiating would have put ISU in the bonus in the first 6 minutes of each half. Like not calling the outside fastball, until rough play is mandated out, ISU will continue to suffer at the hands of the goons.

Besides, the rough play isn't helping the Jayhawks.
The present coach has won 18 B12 games in four seasons, which isn't
very good from where I sit. One wonders if her seat is getting warm, or
if, like football ('07 excepted), as long as it isn't a completeembarrassment, the AD doesn't care.

Bring back the touch foul. Over the back would have a welcome return, too.

Peterclone