Unwatchable (a rant)

Yes, I know today is Wednesday and the game I'm talking about happened on Sunday but better to rant late than never. Is it just me, or is Big Ten basketball just about unwatchable? I've been able to watch a fair amount of MSU basketball this year, which has been nice. Sort of. My biggest complaint is the officiating. So Sunday, I was watching MSU and Ohio State. The game itself was frustrating at first. When I tuned in MSU was losing to an OSU team it should have been working over. The Spartans couldn't catch a break so I thought, man the refs are not helping us here.

In the second half MSU controlled the ball better and started to look like they might actually want to win after all... and a funny thing happened. The calls worked in the Spartan's favor. I understand that games are sometimes called to "favor" a more aggressive team and I think this works to MSU's favor often enough. I can understand that part but my problem is with the number of calls. Sunday's box score shows 33 personal fouls called (split evenly betweent the teams) during the game... the 40 minute game. That's right nearly a foul every minute... every 72.7 seconds (of game time) to be exact. Why? Why is this necessary?

I know MSU has a reputation as being an aggressive team, but doesn't this seem excessive? I've heard the story how a few years ago Izzo had the team do a rebounding drill with football shoulder pads on... it seems to be brought up at least once in every game (I personally don't believe this happened, or if it did it was a publicity stunt. Would and Division I coach really put his players at that much of a risk for injury in a rebounding drill?) I'm sure the officials have intentions of "keeping games clean" and blah, blah, blah what ever cliche you want to use here... but I think they could maybe let a little more slide to help the flow of the game without anybody getting hurt or into a fistfight. I don't know the officials by names or follow this, but I will say one name that seems to come up a lot during the most frustrating games I watch (and the only ref I can name, I promise) including Sunday's gem* is Ed Hightower. Here it shows he calls the most fouls per game this year so far. But my point is not to pick on him, look at the list and nobody on it is below 30 fouls a game.

I guess I think it's too much, and they should back of for fan (at least this fan's) enjoyment. A novel idea, I know... call a game that makes it easier to watch and that fans enjoy by staying out of the way and letting players decide the outcome. After watching several MSU games I guess the Big Ten and its officials think I must be crazy.

*not really a gem