"Controversial call sends Michigan to Elite 8."

BETTER than Tennessee all night.  The refs made a few shitty calls in the final minutes to help the Vols back into the game at the end.  We get ONE call our way at the end and all of a sudden the whole game is controversial?  Fuck that.  LeVert stripped the ball before the charging call and we would've taken possession.  Much ado about nothing.  Michigan was the better team and deserved to win that game.

We won. Big deal. Screw the media.

that a game in the last few minutes. Could not believe they gave it back to us after it seemed they were hellbent on giving it to Tennessee in the waning minutes.

I thought the officiatig was horrible and there were at least a handful of key calls that went against Michigan. Focusing on the charge call is absurd...

If there's a rival flavor to schadenfreude it is media butthurt. Tell me more about how Tennessee got screwed.

my favorite was the vol player that was quoted "i can't believe that an official would make that call with a game of this magnitude". as if the rules of the game do not matter when it's a big game.

they should have known that michigan was going to try and draw an offensive foul. they should have avoided it at all costs. guy made a bad decision, and now he get's to complain about it for the rest of his life.

There goes our chance at a non-shared National Championship!  Maybe if some of the UM grad judges out there would commute more Tennessee player sentences then we could get back in good graces. That or cease televising games that bear witness to actual Tennessee teams actions versus legend.

Tenn fans were relatively chill about it. I find it funny that MSU fans think it was a bad call. It was either a charge or a no call. Both benefited Michigan.

If "the players decided the outcome of the game" then Caris would have stolen the ball, presumably got fouled with very very little time left (less than what actually ensued) and Michigan probably wins anyway. That's what I don't understand about this charge controversy. There was a loose ball regardless of the call. If you want to say it was a block then that's different. But don't say it's a shame the refs decided the outcome because if anything that whistle have Tennessee enough time to heave a prayer.

Controversial if you've never watched or played basketball. You can't drop the shoulder. Especially when you weigh 240. The controversial call to me is when the ball went out of bounce clearly off the ten player and was handed back to them, starting the whole Michigan mental lapse.

Clear as ever on replay.

Let's find every obscure media comment we don't like and post it in order to suggest a media conspiracy!

The Yahoo analyst interviewed in the video, Brad Evans, concludes with this laugher:

"So, just a circus of errors by the zebras under a minute to go which decided the game in favor of Michigan."

This implies that all the errors went in Michigan's favor. But if the "zebras" had gotten the first call correct—which they should have after their lengthy review of that play in which the Tennessee player clearly knocked the ball out of bounds—the entire complexion of the rest of the game changes.

The whole media hatred of us is directly linked to our head coach. When you have a head coach that yells at the refs every time one walks by, goes out on the court more than his subs and blames every problem the team has on their injuries (some self inflicted) you are bound to get people to hate you. 

Oh wait...that shit gets them to love you????   Never mind.

Kevin Kaduk is a hack.

I think I need to stay off Facebook until the Dance is over. My feed was awash with butthurt Sparty tin foil hat-wearers pissing and moaning about how it was more than a botched call - the refs/NCAA/media/Bilderbergs/Martians clearly want Michigan to win ZOMG you guys BLUE WALL scUM dslfkjdflkjdflksjdflksjdflkj.

In fact, they were so in the tank for Michigan that it was all they could think about and as a result only called two fouls on Tennessee for the first 16:07 of the second half, giving them several to burn on repeatedly fouling those late inbound plays. scUM handed ANOTHER win!!1!!!1111!!!!11!!!!

At what point does simply enjoying your own program's success become enough?

Even if Morgan doesn't get the charge, Stokes dropped the ball. We get it either way.

Reported on in fairly:

 

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/03/michigan-tennessee-refs-referees-ncaa-t…

I love how Kevin Kaduk brought up the rule change for a block/charge for when an offensive player begins his motion to shoot or pass. But fails to realize that Stokes was not shooting or passing at that moment. Journalism at its finest.

I said this during the liveblog, but there is one basketball on the court and three dudes whose job it is to make sure they know where it is at all times.  Yet, a couple of times the officials blew what seemed like easy calls because they simply weren't in the right position.  It should never have gotten to the situation with Morgan and Stokes, and UT fans know that.  Yes, it was a "controversial" call because while you call it a charge the first 39 minutes of a game, there's some inane sense of "letting them play" at the end which translates to "don't call offensive fouls" in reality.

The right call was made, and the right team won.  I couldn't give a crap what a bunch of lazy writers have to say.

the other 38 minutes we pretty much controlled and somewhat dominated. Hacks.

The last few minutes of that game were a giant clusterfuck with things that could have been called, maybe shouldn't have been called, or could have gone either way.  Singling out one event is just dumb.

a very heated email to this guy outlining all of the great points laid out above.  If he wants to write a hack article, he is going to hear about it from me!  I never really care enough to write heated emails but this email got pretty heated!

Don't care.  Old news.

Now, about Kentucky . . . 

This should be a non-issue. Had the refs overturned the out-of-bounds that was called off of UM but really went off the hand of Maymon there would be nothing to write regarding the charge on Stokes. That play was a 4 point swing IMO. Had they gotten that call correct the first time, Michigan is shooting free throws (after and additional 10 seconds are run off the clock while TN finally fouls enough to put UM in the bonus) and now up by 7 with ~35 seconds left as opposed to up by only 3 with 45 seconds left.

Furthermore, all CBS talked about was the controversial charge call. AGAIN, HAD THE REFS GOTTEN THE OUT OF BOUNDS CALLED CORRECTLY THERE WOULD BE NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.

At the very least, call it even.

The Tennesse liveblog was all about how they were getting screwed by the refs and ours was the same.  So whatever.

from "it's on the internet so it's fact" wikipedia

Charging

• The defender was still, or moving sideways or backward but not forward, when contact occurred.
• The defender took a legal guarding position before the contact, that is, one with both feet on the floor.
• The defender was hit on the torso (as opposed to the arm or leg).

i think most of the grumpy pants are just angry that this is one of the rare times that a basketball official made a call that was accurate to the words of the rule.

To be fair, if there was a non-call, I don't think Caris would have successfully stolen that ball. He poked it loose, but it clearly looks like it was headed out-of-bounds.  It would've been Tennessee's ball to in-bound again.

But I agree generally it's largely BS to blame the result of the game on one call or another.  There were just as many--if not more--non-calls that should've gone against Tennessee.  Same with blown free-throws, blown video reviews, etc.

The game was close enough that any one of perhaps 5-6 different variables going a different way might have changed the outcome of the game.  Most of them were in Tennessee's direct control.  To blame one of the things that was literally out of their control as the only thing that should/could have changed the outcome of the game is simply shirking reponsibility.  

It's basically how losers talk--blaming everybody else instead of focusing on what's directly within your control to change or improve for the future...

 

EDIT:  In other news, it looks like I've graduated out of the kiddie poll and now have the power to up-vote & down-vote.  Go me.  Looking forward to doling out pos bangs in the future!

If the blind and stupid refs hadn't blown the obvious out of bounds call earlier it wouldn't have been that close to begin with.  Basketball is a game where you can literally pick and choose the blown or incorrect calls from game to game.  Tennessee needed a miracle just to be in the situation it ended up in, and I don't believe in karma, but that last call that went against Stokes was terrible, but it also righted the wrong that was about half a dozen calls that went their way.

This is just what the media does - they fish for storylines. Most of them don't have a beef with Michigan. It's just their job to drum this shit up. Just ignore it. The storyline will be over after the next game.

What I don't understand is that, IIRC, Levert had the ball so if it was a no-call then he would've just had to dribble the clock out.  In fact, that charge actually helped Tennessee because the clock was stopped for them and gave them another chance.