Rush The Court

The Lede. It was billed as a probable blowout, but when you place two of the game’s regal programs on the same floor with two of the best coaches in the business standing opposite one another, we all knew better. Kansas and UCLA represent about a million wins, a couple hundred conference titles and several dozen national championships (Helms titles included!) — well, at least it feels that way. The point is that no matter the present rankings, so long as Bill Self and Ben Howland are patrolling the sidelines at these two schools, they’ll always be competitive. Tonight’s game personified that word, competitive. Too bad it got ruined by an egregious whistle made by an official who needs to remember to let the kids decide the game.

Your Watercooler Moment. Foul or not a foul? Should a referee make the same call with 19:01 on the clock as he does with 00:01 on the clock? These questions were the biggest story in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series game between Kansas and UCLA this evening. After 39 minutes and 59 seconds of back-and-forth basketball between two of the sport’s bluest of bloods, the game balanced on a loose ball situation where a UCLA player bumped a Kansas player as both pursued the rock. Kansas guard Mario Little arrived at the ball a split-second prior to UCLA’s Malcolm Lee, and the referee on the near-side thought the ensuing bump with 0.7 seconds remaining on the clock was sufficient to justify blowing the whistle. From our view (and most of America’s, if Twitter is any indication), that’s a bit of contact that you don’t call at any point of the basketball game, but ESPECIALLY not in a tie game such as this one with under a second to play. Although ours appears to be the majority viewpoint, there are alternate ones: ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla, for instance, stated that he believed the bump was a foul at any point of the game, and it was in fact the correct call. Gary Parrish says that there’s something for everyone in that play — KU fans, UCLA fans, and the fence-sitters. UCLA head coach Ben Howland, however, only saw it one way, throwing down a water bottle in disgust before later saying that it was a poor way to end the game. Star of the night Tyler Honeycutt said afterward, “as refs, you’re supposed to just let that go.” If this were the NBA, both UCLA player and coach would be facing hefty fines from the league, but we think that the Pac-10 will cut them some slack here, because, well, they’re right. But don’t take our word for it, check it out for yourself.

We were also lucky enough to have our correspondent Brian Goodman at the game in Allen Fieldhouse tonight. He filed this report after the exciting 77-76 finish.

Kansas 77, UCLA 76. Kansas’ 64-game homecourt winning streak has never been threatened the way UCLA did on Thursday night. Behind a monster game from Tyler Honeycutt and a breakout performance from freshman center Josh Smith, UCLA hung with the Jayhawks throughout the game and led on multiple occasions. Ultimately, the game was decided on a controversial foul call with the score tied and less than a second remaining on the clock. After Honeycutt hit a trey with three seconds left to tie the game, Kansas inbounded the ball, briefly lost control of it, and in the ensuing chase a foul was called on Malcolm Lee during Mario Little’s heave at the basket (see above). After conferring, Mario Little was called to the free throw line, where he buried one of two shots (intentionally missing the second) to give Kansas a 77-76 win in their first true home test of the season. In a game like this last season, Jayhawks coach Bill Self would have put the ball in Sherron Collins’ hand and let him go to work. With Collins gone, Self looked for big-game players and may have found two candidates. Collins’ successor at the point, Tyshawn Taylor, stepped up by pouring in 11 crucial second half points, including six straight while the lead seesawed back and forth. Kansas native Tyrel Reed also posted an inspiring performance with 17 points. After the game, UCLA coach Ben Howland reviewed the game-deciding call in the locker room and expressed his frustration. “It was a really poor way to end the game. Normally, you wouldn’t make that kind of call at the end of the game unless it was very obvious.” The Bruins may not have come out on top, but outplaying KU on their own court (as Self admitted in the post-game press conference) should instill a boatload of confidence for UCLA as they look to hang with Arizona and Washington this season in the Pac-10.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Tyler Honeycutt & Josh Smith. If these two bring it every night like they did at Kansas tonight, UCLA is easily a top 20 team. Honeycutt has the appearance of a player ready for an All-American year. He’s averaging 18/8 each night and shooting at an extremely efficient 54% from the floor as predominantly a face-up player. Tonight was the first game of Smith’s career where he wasn’t in foul trouble (20 fouls in five games prior to tonight), and it showed in his production — 17 points and 13 rebounds in 28 outstanding minutes. Now that the Bruins have other players to move past the disaster of the 2008 recruiting class (Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson had 8 points on 4-12 shooting), they can start to turn the corner toward getting back to normalcy in Westwood.
• Pac-10. You’re surprised to see a league that went 0-3 tonight in this spot, right? Well the Pac-10 is an easy, opportune target, but their three teams — UCLA, Oregon and Arizona State — were all heavy underdogs tonight yet all three of them competed like you would hope from major conference teams. In other words, despite playing much better teams in all three games, the Bruins, Ducks and Sun Devils represented their league well even though they all lost. On the flip side of things, the Big 12 is now 4-0 in the Hardwood Series, with a pretty big game (K-State @ Wazzu) tomorrow night.
• EJ Singler. It’s got to be tough being Kyle Singler’s little brother, watching as big bro wins a national title at Duke only to return home and spank your team while you wallow at the bottom of the Pac-10. But the sophomore forward is talented, and he recovered nicely from the thrashing against Duke by dropping 19/9 in a near-win against Missouri, probably the biggest highlight of Oregon basketball in a couple of years. The Ducks have a long way to go, but Dana Altman has them playing hard, which is the first time we can say those words about this team in quite some time.
• This Year’s Scoring Guards. LaceDarius Dunn made six of twelve three attempts tonight to stay above 50% on the season, and it got us thinking about the numerous high-scoring guards around the country who are all legitimate candidates for first-team All-America honors. Between Kemba Walker at UConn, Dunn at Baylor, Kyrie Irving at Duke, E’Twaun Moore at Purdue, Jimmer Fredette at BYU, Jordan Hamilton at Texas and Austin Freeman at Georgetown… it’s going to be a difficult year to distinguish between so many stars. We didn’t even mention Jacob Pullen at K-State or Kalin Lucas at Michigan State, two guys who are more than capable of turning it on as the season progresses.

…and Misses.

• Kansas’ Five National Championship Banners. Good grief. First Carolina, now Kansas. We simply cannot understand why schools are allowing marketing gone amok to take hold with these ridiculous Helms Titles. If you’re going to cheapen yourself by claiming two additional “legitimate” national titles, at least have the decency to make the banner look different. Putting banners up stating National Champions 1922 and National Champions 1923 completely insults the efforts made by the likes of Clyde Lovellette, Danny Manning and Mario Chalmers to get through the gauntlet of the NCAA Tournament as the last one standing. Next on the Helms arms race: Kentucky, positioned to now claim nine banners (adding 1933 and 1954)? By the way, RTC has decided to posthumously award the 1985 national title to the Georgetown Hoyas, the 1991 national title to the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, the 1997 national title to the Kansas Jayhawks, and the 1999 national title to the Duke Blue Devils — your banners and other assorted paraphernalia are in the mail.