Voice of the Hawkeyes Board

U2- I noticed the early casual conversations also with Izzo and the refs. First one I saw reminded me of a Chicago or New Orleans politician reminding them of the way the election is planned to turn out.

I think Iowa needs one more good player to be a contender. We have good players, but not consistent and not a reliable go-to player.

Mich St also appeared to have more athletic players and size and they showed it when the game was on the line.

Iowa also can be its' own worst enemy with blown bunny shots and dumb turnovers.

Mich St really turned up and played very good perimeter defense the last 10 minutes of the game and swarmed our young backcourt.

While frustrating for Iowa fans, last night's game is everything a B1G game should represent -- minus poor officiating

Ya, just get every call.

You guys definitely have the coach for it. I'm only recalling one blowout loss for you this season, against Michigan. Played all the other contenders really tough and even beat Wisconsin. It's hard to imagine the B1G getting any more brutal than it has been the past two seasons, but it's a real possibility next season if Iowa joins the fray at the top.

The conference officials are pretty terrible across the board. Save for a couple solid ones. The stripes last night were terrible from whistle to whistle. It didn't benefit one team or another.

What about Jim Bain? He was the worst bum of all time in our league.

Haha. I saw that.

I think Iowa is clearly good enough to be in the field, and better than at least some of the teams that will land at-large bids. But there are specified criteria that all coaches and athletic directors know about well in advance. Based on those criteria, I don't think Iowa has earned a bid to the Big Dance this year.

the 3 missed bunnies by White, Basabe and Woodbury were more cause for the loss than the refs. Get over it.

First of all, I honestly felt like Iowa got the benefit of the whistle in the first half. Michigan State went up strong inside a lot, and wasn't getting many calls that were possible fouls. Michigan State got the better end of the calls in the second half, but I've seen a lot worse-officiated games than that.

They definitely missed the shot clock violation, but that's a tough call to make live because it's pretty close. It's ridiculous that that can't be replayed, however, in the same way an end-of-half buzzer beater can be.

The no-call when Marble went up for the three wasn't that bad, IMO. I honestly thought that was 50-50 because, while the defender did commit and jump in the air, Marble went out of his way to initiate the contact. That's sometimes called a foul, but refs have been gradually giving the offense the benefit of the doubt less and less in that situation over the past few years.

Didn't think the no-call on Basabe's dunk/layup attempt was bad at all. The defender got a lot of ball, and there was less contact with Basabe than there was on some of Iowa's blocks in the first half that weren't called fouls.

On Nix's and-one, he probably did travel, but that's often not called when it happens while a player is being fouled. I think it could have gone either way.

Regarding the "headlock" McCabe was put in, he was also holding onto the MSU player's arm for dear life while losing his balance. Especially at that stage of the game, I'm fine with a no-call when it could have gone either way, and it didn't affect the action on the court.

On MSU's offensive rebound to go up 57-49, that was one case where I thought the broadcast did an awful job of not showing the replay. Thought there could have been a foul called on MSU, but with no replay, it's tough to tell for sure.

I thought that was definitely a bad call when they whistled White for a foul with 30 seconds left.

I didn't think Marble got fouled on that final three. The defender was standing straight up in legal guarding position, and just wasn't giving Marble any room to shoot. The only way that's called a foul is if it's LeBron or Kobe taking the shot.

On the foul they whistled on Basabe in the video linked at the end, I thought that was a good call. If you undercut a player while he's in the air, they're going to call it on you. It just looked bad because Basabe got the wrong end of the collision from a player landing on top of him.

To clarify, I wasn't saying that it definitely wasn't a foul, but just that I thought it was at least arguable. We can agree to disagree, though.

These are really where I was frustrated with how things were called. You hit 1 right on the head, absolutely no reason they can't review this. If they had called it a shot clock violation, it can be reviewed (or at least it was against Nebraska last week).

I thought Nix's travel was a bad call in general. I really didn't think McCabe fouled him, especially because Nix lost balance and fell forward into McCabe. Really nothing Zach could do there unless he just grabbed and pulled him down, which likely becomes flagrant.

That foul on White is really the most angering one. Iowa would have had a chance to win the game, it would have been solely in THEIR hands. When you put a guy to the line like that (especially after the 50/50 calls that Marble didn't get earlier - keep this consistent please) it takes it from a win possession to a tie possession. I'd be fine if Iowa lost by just 1 and they actually had the chance to win. It just took a different spin, tough to accept right away.

I actually am the other way on the Basabe foul. He really was just kind of in a position with nothing to do. Payne jumped on him, I would have left that as a no call, it really didn't look like a foul on either team.

Edit: none of these views are directed at you, Todd. Just playing devil's advocate here and these are more of meant to be said at the crew that did the game.