Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Tennessee–Rutgers
Officially, Tennessee center Nicky Anosike was fouled by Rutgers’ Kia Vaughn with 0.2 seconds left in the game and Tennessee trailing by 1. Anosike made both free throws, and Tennessee won the game.
But ... the clock appeared to have stopped at 0.2 seconds, and stayed there for a short period of time, before running down to zero. What happened? ESPN, to its credit, does an analysis of the video to help provide more facts and possibly eliminate the emotion surrounding this event. They show that the clock stopped at 0.2 seconds, and stayed there for 1.3 seconds. But they did the wrong analysis! It is irrelevant how long the clock stayed at 0.2. If the foul occurred 0.1 seconds after the clock froze, then the foul should be penalized, free throws shot, and, well, you know what happened.
However, over at YouTube, someone did the right analysis. We can see a superimposed timer, synchronized with the game clock starting with 1.0 seconds left, showing what the clock should have read after it froze at 0.2 seconds. The only problem is that from the angle shown on this video, you can’t specifically see when the foul occurred. I believe that the foul actually occurred a hair after the clock hits zero, but you could also make the argument that the foul occurred a hair before the clock hits zero.
So what to make of this? What do we think of the officials handling of this situation? First, there is no doubt that there was a foul. They were absolutely correct to signal the foul, as the buzzer hadn’t sounded. The only question is: did time expire before the foul because of the clock malfunction? Since the officials did not have the YouTube video, and since this video shows the foul occurred within a hair of 0.0, I don’t have a problem with the decision to say the foul occurred before time expired. Could the officials (should the officials) have noticed that the clock froze at 0.2? Possibly, but note that ESPN’s announcers (Eric Collins and Carolyn Peck) didn’t notice the clock freezing until the third or fourth replay. It’s not something you normally look for, as I have never seen it happen in any other situation. So even if the officials noticed the clock freezing at 0.2, then what? They still have to decide whether or not the foul occurred before 0.0 should have occurred, and that would be an extremely difficult thing to do given the video evidence. If you notice the clock has frozen at 0.2, it is not an automatic decision that the foul came after 0.0. And so, I give the officials the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Which brings me to a larger point, one that I have felt strongly about for many years. I get so tired of coaches and players, in effect, saying “We wuz robbed”. I would have more tolerance for this attitude if they would also say, at other times in their career, that the officials or timing device erred in their favor and they didn’t really deserve the win. But as far as I can remember, that has never happened. No one ever says that. Clock errors happen, and they will happen again in the future. One side or the other will not be happy, and you know what? I have no sympathy. It’s part of sports, deal with it.
Side point: several people, including an announcer or two, have stated that the whistle didn’t blow until after 0.0. A variation was that the referee didn’t raise his/her arm until after 0.0. And neither the whistle, nor the raising of an arm, is important here. The only thing that matters is whether the contact on Anosike was before 0.0 or not. The whistle can be after 0.0, it doesn’t mean a thing if the actual contact was before 0.0.
Side point: the manufacturer of the clock seems to think that the only way for the clock to freeze as it did was because someone pushed a button. He rules out (but I do not rule out) an electrical or mechanical malfunction. I guess we will never know.
But ... the clock appeared to have stopped at 0.2 seconds, and stayed there for a short period of time, before running down to zero. What happened? ESPN, to its credit, does an analysis of the video to help provide more facts and possibly eliminate the emotion surrounding this event. They show that the clock stopped at 0.2 seconds, and stayed there for 1.3 seconds. But they did the wrong analysis! It is irrelevant how long the clock stayed at 0.2. If the foul occurred 0.1 seconds after the clock froze, then the foul should be penalized, free throws shot, and, well, you know what happened.
However, over at YouTube, someone did the right analysis. We can see a superimposed timer, synchronized with the game clock starting with 1.0 seconds left, showing what the clock should have read after it froze at 0.2 seconds. The only problem is that from the angle shown on this video, you can’t specifically see when the foul occurred. I believe that the foul actually occurred a hair after the clock hits zero, but you could also make the argument that the foul occurred a hair before the clock hits zero.
So what to make of this? What do we think of the officials handling of this situation? First, there is no doubt that there was a foul. They were absolutely correct to signal the foul, as the buzzer hadn’t sounded. The only question is: did time expire before the foul because of the clock malfunction? Since the officials did not have the YouTube video, and since this video shows the foul occurred within a hair of 0.0, I don’t have a problem with the decision to say the foul occurred before time expired. Could the officials (should the officials) have noticed that the clock froze at 0.2? Possibly, but note that ESPN’s announcers (Eric Collins and Carolyn Peck) didn’t notice the clock freezing until the third or fourth replay. It’s not something you normally look for, as I have never seen it happen in any other situation. So even if the officials noticed the clock freezing at 0.2, then what? They still have to decide whether or not the foul occurred before 0.0 should have occurred, and that would be an extremely difficult thing to do given the video evidence. If you notice the clock has frozen at 0.2, it is not an automatic decision that the foul came after 0.0. And so, I give the officials the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Which brings me to a larger point, one that I have felt strongly about for many years. I get so tired of coaches and players, in effect, saying “We wuz robbed”. I would have more tolerance for this attitude if they would also say, at other times in their career, that the officials or timing device erred in their favor and they didn’t really deserve the win. But as far as I can remember, that has never happened. No one ever says that. Clock errors happen, and they will happen again in the future. One side or the other will not be happy, and you know what? I have no sympathy. It’s part of sports, deal with it.
Side point: several people, including an announcer or two, have stated that the whistle didn’t blow until after 0.0. A variation was that the referee didn’t raise his/her arm until after 0.0. And neither the whistle, nor the raising of an arm, is important here. The only thing that matters is whether the contact on Anosike was before 0.0 or not. The whistle can be after 0.0, it doesn’t mean a thing if the actual contact was before 0.0.
Side point: the manufacturer of the clock seems to think that the only way for the clock to freeze as it did was because someone pushed a button. He rules out (but I do not rule out) an electrical or mechanical malfunction. I guess we will never know.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Thoughts About The Super Bowl
Now that I have had time to clear my mind about what happened in the Superbowl, let me throw out a few comments:
- This was the most exciting Super Bowl in a long long time. The excitement was magnified by the Patriots’ attempt to go undefeated. There are not many sporting events where I can feel my heart pounding at the end, but I felt it at the end of this game.
- Eli Manning: he certainly has played well from week 17 on, after several years of inconsistency. He deserved to be the Super Bowl MVP, but I’m not ready to put him into the category of elite quarterback just yet. It takes more than five games of consistency to prove that you are now consistent.
- Eli Manning’s escape and pass to David Tyree on 3rd down and 5 with 1:15 left in the game was the greatest play I have ever seen in a Super Bowl. ESPN’s Mike and Mike agree with me, so I know they’re correct!
- Bill Belichick leaves the field one second early: classless, graceless, unprofessional and entirely in character for him. But on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 doesn’t get me upset and 10 sends me into a screaming fury, I would rate this a 1 or 2.
- Boris Cheek: yes, Boris Cheek. You know, the guy wearing number 41 in the striped shirt. Oh, you didn’t notice him, did you? I didn’t either, until the next night when he was interviewed by ESPN’s Rebecca Lobo while he was attending his daughter Joy’s basketball game (she plays for Duke). It was a very touching moment, to hear his thoughts about the game. Normally, we only hear about referees when they screw up, but here was one referee discussing the highlight of his career. The basketball game’s play by play announcer, Eric Collins, referred to him as refereeing royalty. (Have I metioned that I like Eric Collins? Oh yeah, I did...)
- NY Giants Chase Blackburn didn’t get off the field before the snap, leading to a crucial penalty against NY for 12 men on the field. I thought it was a correct call, because in my mind, rules involving lines must be strictly enforced. If you have to be on one side of the line, then you have to be on that side of the line, not one inch on the other side. This is different than other judgment calls involving contact, like pass interference, where different people can look at the play and come to different conclusions. However, the Super Bowl announcers, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman got into an extended debate on this topic; Aikman eventually invoked the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to support his point, and I think (although I’m not really sure) that Wittgenstein agrees with me.
My Voting Experience
Yesterday, I voted. It was an unusual experience for me — not because I don’t normally vote (I do normally vote), but because this was the first time in a long time that I had seen a line ahead of me. And for the first time in a long time, I was going to vote for a candidate that I wasn’t very comfortable voting for — that would be Senator Hillary Clinton.
There are a lot of reasons why I don’t feel comfortable with Clinton (her earlier support of the Iraq war, her corporate ties, her refusal to consider raising the social security cap) but there are even more reasons why I don’t feel comfortable voting for Barack Obama either. I guess in the end, I was more comfortable with Clinton than Obama (see Lambert for some reasons, which I agree with). And let me add that there are many good reasons to like both candidates, and I’m sure that in the general election, I will support whichever one wins the Democratic nomination.
But in the voting booth, I saw John Edwards was still on the ballot. He was my preferred candidate, and even though he has withdrawn from the race, I cast my vote for John Edwards, thinking that in some small way, votes still going to Edwards would cause Clinton and Obama to adopt more progressive positions.
This was also my last time using New York State’s old lever style voting machines. Next year, we get an electronic device to count our votes. A discussion of these devices is here and here, and the security of these devices remains very much unclear. Unlike the lever style machines, where I was 100% confident that my vote would be properly counted, I have no such confidence in the electronic voting machines. Let’s hope that in the next year, much is done to increase the public’s confidence in the electronic voting machines.
As an aside, the two people ahead of me on the voting line both insisted that they had registered, but their names were not on the list of registered voters. I’m not siding with either the Board of Election workers nor the people ahead of me, as I don’t know who is right. But the woman ahead of me said she was “pretty sure” she was registered and “pretty sure” she had voted before at this location, and I walked away wondering how someone could simply be “pretty sure” about such a thing. Either you did, or you didn’t. It’s not something you are likely to forget.
There are a lot of reasons why I don’t feel comfortable with Clinton (her earlier support of the Iraq war, her corporate ties, her refusal to consider raising the social security cap) but there are even more reasons why I don’t feel comfortable voting for Barack Obama either. I guess in the end, I was more comfortable with Clinton than Obama (see Lambert for some reasons, which I agree with). And let me add that there are many good reasons to like both candidates, and I’m sure that in the general election, I will support whichever one wins the Democratic nomination.
But in the voting booth, I saw John Edwards was still on the ballot. He was my preferred candidate, and even though he has withdrawn from the race, I cast my vote for John Edwards, thinking that in some small way, votes still going to Edwards would cause Clinton and Obama to adopt more progressive positions.
This was also my last time using New York State’s old lever style voting machines. Next year, we get an electronic device to count our votes. A discussion of these devices is here and here, and the security of these devices remains very much unclear. Unlike the lever style machines, where I was 100% confident that my vote would be properly counted, I have no such confidence in the electronic voting machines. Let’s hope that in the next year, much is done to increase the public’s confidence in the electronic voting machines.
As an aside, the two people ahead of me on the voting line both insisted that they had registered, but their names were not on the list of registered voters. I’m not siding with either the Board of Election workers nor the people ahead of me, as I don’t know who is right. But the woman ahead of me said she was “pretty sure” she was registered and “pretty sure” she had voted before at this location, and I walked away wondering how someone could simply be “pretty sure” about such a thing. Either you did, or you didn’t. It’s not something you are likely to forget.
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