Oates- constant whining- 14 more free throws- at Rupp Arena.
Squeaky wheel got the oil.
That’s not the way logic works though.
Hurley constantly whines and the opposing team shot double the free throws in his home building.
You already have your answers for free throw disparity and some of you would rather not hear it: A.) Pope himself stated in his coach’s show that he does not teach his team to draw fouls. He believes it places the game unnecessarily in the refs’ hands and removes the team from other offensive outcomes. B.) Oats himself told you in the postgame what they did to capitalize on Kentucky’s defensive weaknesses….”We isolated their seals and sent our whales at their seals.” Anyone with a keen eye and openness to fair analysis could see the game and say, “Yeah that is obviously what happened.” When you have defensive mismatches that are matched up with players they cannot defend on an island, excessive fouling occurs.
None of these things mean that any game is going to be called perfectly “even”. Nor does it mean that refs are good (frankly SEC officiating has been horrific). They miss calls in every game and in various situations. This will happen to various degrees until the end of time as long as humans are the ones with whistles dangling around the neck.
At the end of the day if you want to believe officiating is specifically, as a profession, hellbent on tearing down the prestige of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball, I will respect your opinion and stand united on all the things that make us fans of our team but simply disagree on this point. I think it is laughably absurd.
