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The SEC is easily the best men’s basketball conference this season, featuring multiple teams that are Final Four contenders. The league is also having too many unwatchable games.
The games are taking too long to play due to a combination of too many fouls and too many reviews. The magnum opus happened to be Alabama’s 94-88 win over Texas A&M, a game decided in regulation that took 2 hours, 48 minutes to complete thanks to 58 personal fouls called and 88 free throws attempted.
The league needs to recall its officials in-season to help get this cleaned up quickly.
The SEC doesn’t keep track of the length of its games. But anyone who has attended in person or watched a broadcast can notice they’re spending more than two hours on the game.
Kentucky basketball’s style of play under coach Mark Pope is extremely fun to watch with its offensive spacing, ability to pass the ball and its 3-point shooting. What’s not fun is seeing the Wildcats slowed by stoppage in play due to foul calls and official reviews.
Every coach in the SEC will tell you how physical it is. What they won’t say — for fear of being fined — is it’s sometimes officiated like a powder puff game. If that bump or that shove doesn’t result in a clear advantage, then it shouldn’t be called.
Far too often, it is.
Take any random game in the league, like Wednesday’s battle between Georgia and Arkansas. I know one fan base, which shall remain nameless, that was probably watching to see if Razorbacks coach John Calipari would fall to 0-6 in the league.
The game dragged on for 2 hours, 34 minutes. It included a combined 49 personal fouls called and 63 free throws taken. Those are the kind of numbers that ruin a good hate-watch.
Basketball isn’t meant to be a free-throw shooting contest. It feels like that’s what it’s turning into.
Measured against the Cats’ conference games from a year ago, things have run long this season. The Cats played five games that lasted longer than 2:15 last season, six if you…
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Author : The Courier Journal
Publish date : 2025-01-24 10:17:00
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