ORU

[jackrabit1]

Re: ORU

I know it's not kosher to poke fun at religion, but when your school's founder extorts a couple million dollars from his followers with the premise "God will call me home" if they don't pony up, sorry, that's just asking for ridicule.

[RabbitObsessed]

Re: ORU

How about giving me some love for my prediction? (Just kidding)

As to the comments about ORU fans. Everybody is going to stick up for their own players. If Coach Sutton says he is OK with the foul, then that is good enough for me. And several of us did come over and congratulate the Jacks last night. There is no sour grapes at all. It is too bad this series is ending just as a rivalry was developing.

Best of luck the rest of the way and hopefully SDSU and ORU clash in the tournament finals and we get a much better game.

Good call with the prediction. I'll be honest, I thought you were crazy saying we'd win by that much.

And you are right, I'd probably feel the same way if the roles were reversed. G'luck.

[Southeast]

Re: ORU

Go Bison! Since it is apparently inevitable for us Dakotan's, I hope the NDSU squad lets their hockey-oriented goon mentality shine through on Saturday. Pour it on for us NDSU!

We really can't lose either way Saturday, if we take care of business against SUU. We would either be tied with ORU or pretty much out of range of NDSU (for the #2 seed an day off in SF). Beat SUU and enjoy either scenario.

[goon]

Re: ORU

I am not sure if I should take offense or pride in all the "goon"talk that has been discribed.

[jack power]

Re: ORU

Well the Southland understands the nuances and all the subtle shades of basketball...duh! Evidently our team is just a bunch of goons who couldn't make the Hockey team. Their board is clearly on meltdown mode. I've read enough that I might change my mind about missing them when they are gone.......but then I think WWJD? (sorry I just couldn't f#$cking resist, I know I have a problem).

We need to change our school name to "Thug U."

[SUPERBUNNY]

Re: ORU

I think the worst part about the flagrant foul was, reading the play in print, it makes Grif sound like a dirty player. Not only was the play not dirty, intentional, or flagrant in the first play, Grif was the first one to check to see if Pearson was okay.

Griff also took an extra couple seconds in the handshake line to I would assume wish him well. Griff is flat-out a warrior and this team has taken on his relentless attitude. He is also a class act. Thought Sutton was classy about it after the fact too.

I will miss these guys coming to Brookings in the future. Yeah, I guess it makes the conference easier to win but it sure takes a guaranteed strong opponent off of the schedule. Just glad we won the last regular season meeting.

Let's hope there is a game in Sioux Falls between these two! Great win Jacks!

SUPERBUNNY

[witness]

Re: ORU

I don't get why all the ORU fans are mad about the dunk. It clearly wasnt an intended flagrant foul and when things happen above the rim on breakaways hard landings will happen. To be honest if Wolters tried dunking on a breakaway down 17 or so points on the road with a guy next to him and it landed hard, I would be upset that Wolters tried that. Take the free throws and not risk injury by trying to play above the rim.

[filbert]

Re: ORU

The foul on Wolters earlier in the 2nd half was much more a flagrant foul than the one Callahan committed. The ORU player (I forget who it was) actually had hold of Wolters down around the waist, and was making absolutely no effort to play the ball.

The referees were on the ragged edge of losing control of that game for pretty much all of the second half, IMHO.

[KUlawJack]

Re: ORU

I don't get why all the ORU fans are mad about the dunk. It clearly wasnt an intended flagrant foul and when things happen above the rim on breakaways hard landings will happen. To be honest if Wolters tried dunking on a breakaway down 17 or so points on the road with a guy next to him and it landed hard, I would be upset that Wolters tried that. Take the free throws and not risk injury by trying to play above the rim.

Difference is, Wolters wouldn't even think to try to dunk that.

[SUPERBUNNY]

Re: ORU

I don't get why all the ORU fans are mad about the dunk. It clearly wasnt an intended flagrant foul and when things happen above the rim on breakaways hard landings will happen. To be honest if Wolters tried dunking on a breakaway down 17 or so points on the road with a guy next to him and it landed hard, I would be upset that Wolters tried that. Take the free throws and not risk injury by trying to play above the rim.

THIS! THIS! THIS! I don't care what the score is, when you try to dunk it in our house you should be ready to be challenged. Not flagrant, not dirty, but defending the basket in OUR HOUSE! Not so sure we would have challenged it last year. This is Griff's team and he sets the tone for the entire team.

Rep points for a great post!

SUPERBUNNY

[witness]

Re: ORU

Difference is, Wolters wouldn't even think to try to dunk that.

Yes I know he wouldn't. My point was that if a player like Wolters or any other player for the Jacks for that matter tried that I would be upset that they tried it when the game was a lost cause there is no point in trying to slam it home at the end of a game on another teams court. What do you expect will happen?

[BudLight Jackrabbit]

Re: ORU

The foul on Wolters earlier in the 2nd half was much more a flagrant foul than the one Callahan committed. The ORU player (I forget who it was) actually had hold of Wolters down around the waist, and was making absolutely no effort to play the ball.

The referees were on the ragged edge of losing control of that game for pretty much all of the second half, IMHO.

I agree 100% with this and most of Frost Arena did last night too

[RabbitObsessed]

Re: ORU

THIS! THIS! THIS! I don't care what the score is, when you try to dunk it in our house you should be ready to be challenged. Not flagrant, not dirty, but defending the basket in OUR HOUSE! Not so sure we would have challenged it last year. This is Griff's team and he sets the tone for the entire team.

Rep points for a great post!

SUPERBUNNY

We would absolutely not have challenged that at all last year. I would quibble with your point about Griff being the catalyst of this team's toughness; I'd say it's Dykstra. But that's besides the point. Last year's team would have backed down and ran in a game like that. The best example was the NDSU game at home last year. I can still remember that game/one play so clearly (which is strange because it was my 21st birthday) but Trayvon Wright came down the lane while Dykstra and Griff stood at the blocks and watched him throw one down. No one challenged him. That was the most pissed off I have ever been watching a game. I still remember coming home and drunkenly posting that I wished one of them would have stepped up and fouled him hard on that play (I'll probably spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find that post ). That team had no toughness; this team is tough and I like it.

I'm also baffled how one certain ORU fan can say that these type of things always happen to ORU at the XDSU's. I can't speak for any of the games in Fargo, but the 3 teams that I watched on campus prior to this one weren't capable of playing tough like that.

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: ORU

THIS! THIS! THIS! I don't care what the score is, when you try to dunk it on anyone's homecourt you should be ready to be challenged. Not flagrant, not dirty, but defending the basket in front of their fans! Not so sure we would have challenged it last year. This is Griff's team and he sets the tone for the entire team.

Rep points for a great post!

SUPERBUNNY

Fixed. If Pearson tried that in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Illinois, he would have a similar experience.

[filbert]

Re: ORU

Here's what I suspect was happening with that Pearson dunk:

Pearson was frustrated--as most of the ORU players visibly and obviously were almost all the game, and wanted to take out some of those frustrations when he got the opportunity for a breakaway. I guess you could say it probably wasn't the smartest basketball play in the world but I can easily understand why he'd want to do that, given how the emotions on the sleeves of the ORU players were being played out most of the game. That was an EXTREMELY frustrated bunch of Golden Eagles out there--and you could see them visibly deflate even further when Morrison fouled out.

On the other side, I think SDSU did exactly what coach Sutton said they did in his post-game comments--came out and punched ORU right in the kisser. The play of the Jacks--especially Callahan and Dykstra--was an embodiment of a statement that the last ten minutes or so of the game in Tulsa were not going to be repeated.

So, you had a combination of a really frustrated ORU player with a chance to take out a few of those frustrations, combined with an SDSU player who'd played all night with gritted teeth and a bit of a chip on his own shoulder. The results were predictable--an attempted dunk and a really hard foul; one that Sutton himself (and it happened right in front of him) said was in his opinion not a flagrant foul.

But the ref called a flagrant foul. I can understand that too--given my previous comment that the refs were struggling most of the night to control the game. You had (again) a bunch of extremely frustrated Golden Eagles and a bunch of Jackrabbits who were not inclined to back off an inch, and so you had a referee crew who were inclined to make calls not only "as they saw them" but because they knew that they would have a real problem if they didn't keep things under control on the court.

So. Dunk attempt. Hard foul. Flagrant foul call. None of which affected the outcome of the game, thank goodness.

Pearson wasn't a bad guy for trying the dunk, he was being a basketball player. Callahan wasn't a bad guy for aggressively contesting the shot, he was being a basketball player.

With luck, Pearson will recover quickly and completely from the injury he sustained.

These two teams will quite possibly play one another again, with an NCAA tournament bid on the line. The table is set for one heck of a game, if both teams hold up their end of the deal.