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Like most of you, I witnessed what seemed in the moment to be an absolute heist of a loss for the Wisconsin Badgers in Bloomington in their 78-77 loss to the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday afternoon.
And I freaked out accordingly.
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At the end of both regulation and overtime, there were calls from a Michael Reed, Michael Irving, and Larry Scirotto crew that objectively seemed against Wisconsin, and it’s indisputable that Indiana would have suffered a tough home loss without a number of these whistles going the Hoosiers’ way, especially late.
The two calls that ended up being the flashpoints were: (1) a charge on Nick Boyd with 15.1 left in overtime after he’d been fouled at least twice dribbling with the ball, including by the Hoosier defender at the time of the whistle, and (2) a blocking violation whistled on John Blackwell when an apparently out of control Lamar Wilkerson went down in the lane with 2.8 seconds remaining (his free throws won the game for IU).
In real time, both calls appeared to be horrific and/or unusual and sent Wisconsin fans into a rage over a win that seemed to be stolen away.
With some time to reflect, here’s where I am.
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The officiating in this contest definitely favored Indiana, especially in clutch moments. There were at least 10 occasions where a soft or apparently incorrect call went against Wisconsin. In a one-point overtime loss, it’s very hard to argue that this didn’t matter in the outcome. And typical Big Ten Home Cooking, which the Badgers themselves have benefited from many times, can’t fully explain things here.
For example, the charge whistled on Boyd with Indiana’s Conor Enright fused to him like a Siamese Twin is called a block on the defender 90+ percent of the time. It was a legitimately bad call in a big moment. The Blackwell foul is more nuanced, after another angle surfaced that showed him stepping on Wilkerson’s foot. The problem is that wasn’t why the foul was called. It was a simple…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/final-word-wisconsin-indiana-officiating-233924746.html
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Publish date : 2026-02-09 23:39:00
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