Pregame: Illinois vs Penn State, Saturday, December 10th, 11:00am CT, BTN

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#153      
The Sprouting Divot
While we're talking about lousy referees and their off-court lives, I tweeted something critical, crude, angry, or likely some combination thereof about Brian O'Connell screwing us over on some specific call and probably offered him some suggestions about things to do with himself instead of refereeing, and like a year or two later (don't recall the exact duration, but it was a long, long time), I got a notification that he had liked my tweet. I mentioned him by name but not by his Twitter handle, so obviously he was bored and just sifting through Twitter to find all the similar fan feedback and giving everyone another little tweak in return.

As strange as it might sound, the fact that he did that has raised my opinion of him tremendously.
 
#154      
InDaAZ
STL Illini said:
Not to digress too much here, but a buddy of mine is a ref in the SEC. No, not the B1G, but SEC is pretty dang good too.
He has no schools that he dislikes or likes more than another. None. He says that’s basically a common theme with all of the officials in his part time job. That mentality is counterintuitive to most of us rabid fans of our schools, but he literally is not a fan of any school.

What he does comment on when we are just hanging out and drinking a beer is that he (and his fraternity of officials) talks about coaches that are jerks. Yes, they have their lists. But they don’t (according to him) make calls against those teams because the coach is always an a**hat. He has many stories about getting run through the ringer by a coach. He doesn’t care that he gets yelled at, all of them accept it, and they know they get some calls wrong. It’s part of the gif. It’s the coaches that constantly yell, whine, and complain non-stop about everything that they get tired of.
Hearing the rankings of biggest jerk coaches from an officials perspective can be quite entertaining.
So this narrative regarding officials that ‘constantly have a vendetta or bias against Illinois’, or that ‘Illinois always gets screwed by the officials’ is funny to read about. These guys simply don’t care who the team is and they aren’t fans at all. Believe it or not, they want to be great. They do their best to be fair and without bias. They call it how they see it and it’s a very, very difficult job. Every close call makes half of the viewers or spectators pissed. Think about your job…for every big decision you make that is a judgement call, and you piss off half of your co-workers. Tough gig.
Every one of these officials is probably like my buddy….just a good guy that has a passion for the game and they view it as a side job with some pretty cool perks….while trying to do it well. Critique and criticism will always abound.
Candidly, there’s rarely a game thread or post game thread on loyalty (and every other board) where there aren’t countless people complaining that refs hate us, we always get screwed, lost because of the refs, etc….and it’s simply a bad take.
There will always be calls for us and against us, and every other fan base says the same thing about their team.
Now, on a different note…a different buddy of mine (my neighbor) is a MLB umpire….now there are some stories.
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You need to switch your friend over to whiskey, and then ask him if he thinks refs are at all influenced by home crowds.

Nice post, but shame on you for not sharing your friend’s ‘jerk rankings.’ We want NAMES! 😁
 
#155      
St Michel
JMoser16 said:
I won’t be able to watch tomorrow, but have an opportunity to listen to the radiocast. Anyone know an app/website I can stream the radio broadcast from on my phone? I’m out of state. Thank you, and much appreciated
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Are you sure you won't be able to watch? Usually you can log into your internet provider from anywhere and watch the same content as if if you were home.
 
#157      
ptgrd23
Big 10 road games will be hard to come by. MD and Rutgers look very tough at home.
 
#159      
jrichisamazing
ptgrd23 said:
Big 10 road games will be hard to come by. MD and Rutgers look very tough at home.
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Yep, the easiest way to keep track of our progress towards defending our title....go 10-0 at home and 5-5 on the road. Anytime we drop a home game means we need to steal one more on the road.

5 losses won the conference last year, and it is even more wide open this year so 5 might win it outright this season.
 
#161      
Bbuck21
InDaAZ said:
You need to switch your friend over to whiskey, and then ask him if he thinks refs are at all influenced by home crowds.

Nice post, but shame on you for not sharing your friend’s ‘jerk rankings.’ We want NAMES! 😁
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Thanks for sharing. I have never believed that there are refs that favor or dislike a team. Missed calls? Sure. Subconscious make up calls? Sure. But never intentional for/against a team. People really need to think that through. I only get angry when refs don't seem to know what the rules are or don't make a decision. I don't remember which game it was last year. Trent Frazier goes down while dribbling above the key. He is sitting there on the floor holding the ball. Ref calls nothing. The defender tries to grab the ball. Trent calls time. It was either a travel or a foul. Nothing called.
 
#162      
CleaverName
St Michel said:
Are you sure you won't be able to watch? Usually you can log into your internet provider from anywhere and watch the same content as if if you were home.
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Sometimes Xfinity wants to know my location in order to watch live TV and sometimes it says no based on that location. It hasn't happened enough times for me to figure out what has been allowed and what hasn't but sports out of state could be a possibility
 
#163      
JMoser16
Il
St Michel said:
Are you sure you won't be able to watch? Usually you can log into your internet provider from anywhere and watch the same content as if if you were home.
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I will be skiing during gametime, so while I would love to watch, I think listening is the more appropriate option so that I don’t break my neck.
 
#164      
alaskaillini
InDaAZ said:
It’s fine breakfast entertainment for some of us!
Pnw GIF by Mystic Graphics
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Tell me about it. I hate to have to set my alarm to watch a game, lol.
 
#165      
dbeaverfg
Bbuck21 said:
Thanks for sharing. I have never believed that there are refs that favor or dislike a team. Missed calls? Sure. Subconscious make up calls? Sure. But never intentional for/against a team. People really need to think that through. I only get angry when refs don't seem to know what the rules are or don't make a decision. I don't remember which game it was last year. Trent Frazier goes down while dribbling above the key. He is sitting there on the floor holding the ball. Ref calls nothing. The defender tries to grab the ball. Trent calls time. It was either a travel or a foul. Nothing called.
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After reading and watching quite a lot about the Tim Donaghy affair in the NBA there's no doubt in my mind that referees do not like certain coaches/teams/players. Not all refs, but there are some out there that will make calls just to GET someone.
 
#168      
ptgrd23
jrichisamazing said:
Yep, the easiest way to keep track of our progress towards defending our title....go 10-0 at home and 5-5 on the road. Anytime we drop a home game means we need to steal one more on the road.
5 losses won the conference last year, and it is even more wide open this year so 5 might win it outright this season.
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Last year we were 13-3 at home losing to AZ, Purdue and Ohio State.
I want another B10 regular season title.
This year we are 5-0 at home (w two more cupcakes) headed into the B10 season. MSU, Indiana, OSU, Wisconsin and Michigan look like the toughest games. We don't host Purdue or Iowa this year.
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#172      
Point-Illinois
jrichisamazing said:
Yep, the easiest way to keep track of our progress towards defending our title....go 10-0 at home and 5-5 on the road. Anytime we drop a home game means we need to steal one more on the road.

5 losses won the conference last year, and it is even more wide open this year so 5 might win it outright this season.
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If Purdue is for real, I think they’ll go 15-5 so gotta get there to (most likely) tie.

I haven’t seen their schedule. How tough are their away games?
 
#173      
stlrunner
Point-Illinois said:
If Purdue is for real, I think they’ll go 15-5 so gotta get there to (most likely) tie.

I haven’t seen their schedule. How tough are their away games?
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They’ve got Ohios State, Indiana and Maryland on the road, all currently ranked. Plus Michigan and Wisconsin, who won’t roll over at home.
 
#175      
jrichisamazing
Point-Illinois said:
If Purdue is for real, I think they’ll go 15-5 so gotta get there to (most likely) tie.

I haven’t seen their schedule. How tough are their away games?
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I'm counting on Painter and the Boilers to slip up once we get into the conference schedule. B1G coaches know Edey well, and will have better game plans than what Purdue has faced in the non con. If they couldn't win last year with Edey, Trevion, and Ivey then I can't see them winning it this year.
 
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