Ugh

Saturday's games left a distinctly foul taste in my mouth.

USC 77, Stanford 64

Let's start with the Stanford game. No one-- I mean NO one-- showed up for this game wearing crimson except for Kenny Brown. The entire rest of the team looked apathetic, disinterested, bored. Even Taj Finger wasn't diving for loose balls. Look, I understand the UCLA game was irritating. I understand this game wasn't going to affect the final conference standings. I understand it was early in the morning and the players were worn out after Thursday. But come on. USC had at least four or five dunks off of offensive rebounds. The Cardinal were outrebounded by 16 by the worst rebounding team in the conference. Defense seemed to be optional; Trent Johnson eventually had to go to a zone because no one was bothering to mark their man. And the team took a whole bunch of astoundingly poor shots. It was an absolutely pathetic performance which did a ton to erase whatever goodwill the media community had toward the team after they were robbed on Thursday.

Next, the UCLA-Cal game. From a conference standpoint, it's probably as well that UCLA won it. From the standpoint of "wanting to watch basketball, not pro wrestling," it was about as bad as it gets. At least the Thursday travesty was only a single bad call. Here's the full sequence of events that had to happen for Cal to lose this game:

1. Kevin Love makes a miracle double-clutch three, making the score 80-79 Cal.
2. Cal inbounds to Ryan Anderson, who is obviously hacked by the defense. The ball goes out of bounds. No foul is called.
3. Despite the ball clearly going out off of two UCLA players, the referees give the ball to UCLA.
4. UCLA's next shot is blocked out of bounds with 6 seconds left.
5. Ball is inbounded to Josh Shipp, who is cut off on the baseline by great defense from Eric Viernesal and hoists a prayer over the backboard. Despite this being every bit as illegal as taking a jumper from a sideline inbounds and having it go through the net, the officials count the basket with 1.5 seconds to go.
6. Cal throws the ball into the frontcourt, where Shipp punches it into the stands. Although punching the ball is a violation-- which should cause the clock to stop as soon as it occurs, like a kicked ball-- the officials run 8 tenths of a second off the clock, eliminating Cal's ability to catch and take a dribble or pump fake. Predictably, given that the team can only catch-and-shoot, the final shot falls short.

I don't believe I've ever seen a team up by 4 with 20 seconds to go lose a game without doing a single thing wrong before. No missed free throws, no turnovers, nothing. Cal played a perfect end of the game and was hosed by a combination of freakish UCLA luck and one of the worst officiating sequences since the 1972 Olympic final.

Next, the ASU-OSU and WSU-Washington games. These were not televised. FSN's decision to show random non-live programming instead of Pac-10 basketball irritated me on numerous occasions this year, although at least this time most of the time was taken up by the ACC women's tournament. Couldn't the Pac-10 games have gone to FSN+?

Finally, the Oregon-Arizona game. Jerryd Bayless is called at a key point for a double foul, after being essentially mugged by a ringer off the Oregon bench. It's his third foul of the first half, and from that point onward, Oregon is never challenged (although their unbelievable shooting-- I don't recall perfectly, but they may not have missed a 3-pointer in the entire second half-- might have made the result inevitable anyway). The final game of the season perfectly symbolizes the whole year for Pac-10 officiating-- not merely anal-retentive and asinine, but incompetent as well.

Aren't we all looking forward to the Pac-10 tournament now?

Wednesday, Cal faces off with Washington for the "designated Cinderella hopeful" spot, while Oregon State gets creamed by Arizona again and finally stops doing everything in its power to lower the conference's RPI. Quarterfinals are Thursday, with Stanford facing Arizona and Cal-- if it survives Washington-- facing UCLA again. In LA. Again. Thank you, powers that be, for beneficently granting UCLA and USC multiple extra home games every season. It's not quite as retarded as Memphis getting the C-USA tournament on its actual home floor every year, but it's close. Considering the fact that EVERY SINGLE OTHER MAJOR MARKET IN THE PAC-10 HAS AN NBA FRANCHISE, one would think that perhaps the tournament could be rotated around the five "nexi". One would apparently think incorrectly.

That's enough griping for one day, I think. Hopefully I'll have time soon to break down the all-conference selections (which, except for the curious choice of OJ Mayo over Jerryd Bayless for First Team, were actually pretty well put together).