Bo Ryan sets the narrative

It doesn't change the result, but Bo Ryan may have changed college basketball a bit with his post-game comments following Duke's 68-63 win over the Wisconsin Badgers. Ryan didn't follow the script and praise Duke for a superior performance. Instead, he mentioned a few things:

When asked specifically about the officials, Ryan did not address his concerns directly. But it was in another moment, when discussing his juniors and seniors, that the Wisconsin coach began to make reference to a game that was played with a lot of hand and body contact.

"This group was so together and enjoyed each other's company, could needle with each other. They did a lot of good things. I mean, again, if you go through all the things that this team did as a team, the offensive efficiency I mentioned, fewest number of fouls in the country, fewest number of turnovers. Do you know what it takes to have the fewest number of turnovers? A lot of discipline, a lot of work goes into that. If you've ever tried to play the game, it's not as easy as taking care of the ball as you think. But this group just set another standard of taking care of the ball. Playing defense with their feet. Things like that. Not their hands. Sometimes hands are allowed more than others. You know how the game goes. Like I said before, you always got to adjust."

And the narrative took root:

The 2014-15 college basketball season will be remembered for Kentucky’s undefeated run to the Final Four. It will be remembered for Duke’s 1,000th win and fifth national championship under Coach K. Above all, it will be remembered as one of the most horrid officiated seasons in sports history, culminating in a title game with equally horrible calls.

A writer for the Washington Post agreed:

If you thought all the whistles were going in favor of Duke this NCAA tournament, you were right.

One of the most contentious subplots to Duke’s 68-63 victory over Wisconsin, the fifth NCAA championship for the ACC school, was the juxtaposition of fouls. Specifically, how Duke became a darling of the referees during the second half.

After the initial 20 minutes, Duke had been whistled for seven fouls and Wisconsin just two. That isn’t unusual — the Badgers typically defend without sending opponents to the free throw line — but coach Mike Krzyzewski wasn’t going to let the game’s three referees enter the half without a thorough haranguing.

As did USA Today:

Two minutes, probably dozens of views of multiple angles of replays and three highly trained officials, deemed good enough to be reffing in the biggest game of the year, disagreed with all three CBS analysts, all of Twitter and every American watching. Even a non-delusional Duke fan had to know this ball was out on Winslow.

But, alas, the three men who needed to know didn’t. Duke retained the ball up 63-58, hit a three pointer on its next possession, went up 66-58 and basically clinched the game with 1:24 remaining. It was an ugly game with a fun back-and-forth pace, but it didn’t deserve to be decided by officials who couldn’t tell what was plainly obvious.

Even Paul Mirengoff at Powerline noticed:

The refs blew another key out-of-bounds call, failing to notice that Winslow was out of bounds when he made a pass that led to a three-point play (the old-fashioned way) by Okafor. And Duke caught another enormous break when the ref called a blocking foul on an obvious charge by Winslow. Had the proper call been made, Winslow would have fouled out.

As did a lot of other people:

I'm a Badger fan. I don't think the Badgers did enough to win the game. Still, you have to wonder. I think the larger problem is the world of big time sports is too insular. Beyond that, Mike Krzyzewski has concentrated a lot of power in his hands -- since he's the majordomo of USA Basketball, he has enormous advantages and access that other programs cannot approach.

I do think you'll start to see a little more scrutiny of the Dukies after this game. It's not good if people think the fix is in. Right now, a lot of people beyond the sphere of Badgerdom are feeling that way.