🏀 KuBuckets Archive

I have watched four games end to end this March Madness. Of those 4 games, three seemed to have outcomes decisively determined by the referees.

Of those three games decisively determined by referees, all three appeared spooky and borderline intentional gimmes to the winning team, but I can't say for sure.

Question: referee determined outcomes (RDO) or thrown games?

Don't want to be coy about such serious business.

Take KU vs. WSU. Puhlease!

The game started with 7 fouls called on KU and one called on WSU.

Hmmmmm.

When KU begins to pull away, a WSU player beasts on the nose of KU's star player. Despite a video replay that makes it appear flagrant to some, neither a flagrant foul call nor an ejection.

Hmmmmm.

KU stops pulling away and instead starts losing its lead and then falls farther and farther behind.

Sure.

Take UK and UCinn. Puhlease!

UCinn plays them even, or up, for a good part of the game. UCinn seems not the least bit intimidated playing UK even with its 10 draft choices and 4 near footers.

Then the refs intervene and UK gets 28 FTAs to UCinns 14. Even though UK is hacking as much as UCinn. Basically UK appears to be given a free pass to hack UCinn to pieces, and UCinn appears to be called for minor contact and some phantom fouls.

UK pulls away.

RDO or thrown game?

Take UCLA-SMU. Puhlease!

SMU pulls away.

UCLA doesn't even look very good.

The refs intervene.

The UCLAN come back on some questionable foul calls on SMU and no calls on UCLA.

With seconds to go, UCLA, trailing, hoists a desperation trey.

Not only is there no chance of going in, the ball appears completely outside the cylinder.

Not even a doubt in the replay.

If a UCLA rebounder had been there, it would have been called a lob for a legal alley oop.

Instead, an SMU player taps it aside.

Goal tending is called.

The goal tending call gives the UCLAN a score needed to win.

RDO or thrown game?

RDOs seem to be going viral.

Or are thrown games going viral?

Watching the NCAA tourney feels more and more like watching the Friday night fights (or was it Saturday) on TV in the 1950s and 1960s.

My late father said he could never be sure if the basketball games were fixed back in the early 50s point shaving scandals, and again in the early 60s point shaving scandals, but it felt like they were.

He also said he could never be sure if the Friday Night fights were fixed back in the 1950s, or not.

But it felt like they were.

Years later it came out that many were fixed.

Now, I can never be sure if the NCAA tourney games are fixed, or not.

But it feels like they are sometimes.

But I just cannot be sure either way.

Years from now, will I find out many of them WERE fixed?

Imagine all the scams that might be run in computerized gaming, if they were, in this age of fiber with varying speeds.

I look at it this way. Money talks. You have hundreds of officials. You're telling me that a number of them aren't corrupt? Folks have done far less for money. I think there are refs right now that are affecting outcomes.

My guess is that it comes on the over/under. Targeted games. Games where refs can really guide to score over by a big increase in foul calls. Getting teams in the bonus quickly. Hard to keep a basketball game under.

And it doesn't have to work every time. Say a ref's brother in law drops $50,000 on three games, and two of the three fixes pan out? That's a net win of one game, and less the juice, you still make money.

I actually think college football is the easier mark for refs. Again, the over/under being the easier bet to beat.

I do think it is just a matter of time until we get news of fixes or the point spread being affected.

@HighEliteMajor

That is an interesting way to look at it and it vaguely agrees with what I heard from someone back in the mid 80s that claimed to have once had knowledge of NCAA investigations in the 1970s.

@jaybate-1.0

Refs are human too? or are they? lol No I believe the Refs get caught up in the moment. In Omaha it was apparent to me that the Shockers had more fans than KU. At the very least they were louder. As the game rolled into the second half I felt the Shockers were playing a home game.

I posted a while back I think viewership plays a role in bad calls late in the game. A goaltending call eliminates the small SMU fan base vs huge UCLA viewership.

I thought something was suspicious with the KU game before it even started. Once the matchup was set, KU was a 2pt favorite. Then I checked again a few hours before the game and it had dropped to KU 1pt favorite. THEN, right before the game started, the line changed to WSU as a 1pt favorite! That's a big swing right before the game starts. Something smelled fishy and it wasn't the low tide.

@RockkChalkk

That means the betting crowd fell heavy towards WSU right before the game. The point movement happens to even the betting because even though betting is all about risk, what drives the books is the desire to remove their risk by having even money on both sides so they know they will clear their 10% service fee.

There may have been a little extra movement in this game because some of those betting probably wanted to see if Cliff would regain his eligibility right before game time.

@HighEliteMajor

You are right on. There just has to be some crime going on in a game with this huge scale. Corruption exists in this world, especially when you look at anything in mass. Why hasn't someone been caught? Well... first off... this is pretty easy to hide. Second... these crimes get tried in federal court, and that is not only an expensive court to be tried in, but the penalties would be extreme, probably exceeding most murder cases. Last... refs have to have a certain level of intelligence to be able to earn their qualification. Smarter criminals get caught less often.... NEVER!

@RockkChalkk

Interesting point.

Does anyone have any stats on average betting line movement during that period before round of 32 tournament games? That would be interesting to know.

CHECK THIS OUT!!!

http://www.thepasadenapost.com/post/112768850743/former-william-wesley-acquaintance-calipari ↗

Some guy claims to have hard physical evidence (texts, emails, phone call recordings) that Cal pays refs...

@JayhawkRock78 I think if there is any 'conspiracy' or behind-the-scenes "pull" to help a particular team win, its your idea of viewership, and the number of TV sets. Simply because of ALL the big, huge, amount of advertising money. It's THAT advertising money that is the bulk of the TV pkg deals inked by the major conferences and how, by re-doing the deal, the BigXII went from $9mil a year for each school, to the current $20mil per school per year (partly helped by only 10 team slice of the pie). SO, with the NCAA Tourney being HUGE TV event, how much wasted advertising dollars would it have been to have SMU advance, while all the UCLA folks turned off their TV sets.

I totally agree with the plausibility of such a scenario. I just hope its not true.

@ralster
Credit "The Pelican Brief" and who stood to gain from taking out the two members of the court. It was Matice and his oil money.

Everybody was calling out UCLA when they got in the dance. To their credit they won games, but the first one against SMU? How many people follow San Diego St. Or UC Irvine?

I would hope it isn't so, but this one just screamed FOUL.

@Statmachine

There is no Pasadena Post. It's a fraud site selling us on fraud. Doesn't mean some of that information isn't true.

Concerning fixing games:

Surely it must happen sometimes. There are just too many games played in this world to have all of them clean from tampering. The obvious reason to fix a game is the game is on a booking board. Second... that it's spread enough to collect a decent pot of gamblers. All of D1 fits in these requirements.

The fact that no proven cases have appeared in several decades indicates that if it is happening, the culprits are very careful and very capable. This means carefully vetting officials and carefully interviewing them to find the right opportunities. No one that isn't directly involved can know this is going on. Why? Because if prison time isn't hanging over your head, eventually you will talk.

Could someone like WWW pull this off? Highly unlikely. He may be a scumbag, but he doesn't have the same kind of infrastructure a mob crew has. To pull something like this off, you need to have insurance. You need to know if someone suddenly looks like a snitch, you can take care of the situation, by any means necessary. The only situation where I see someone like WWW being able to pull this off is if he has direct ties with a syndicate. Those ties would have to be connected with blood. Like I said earlier... the penalties in a case like this could far exceed most murder cases. Most likely, feds watch a guy like WWW. Or at least, they notice if he suddenly is seen with mob figures.

Even involvement of the mob doesn't guarantee success. We know that from the NY point shaving scandal from the 50s.

But if you jump down to basketball below college.. there is major fixing going on every day. I mentioned before playing on tournament teams. We'd go to a bunch of small towns and typically win their tournaments. But sometimes we'd face some very crooked officiating provided by the tournament organizers. Their crooked whistle would become apparent when we play the local teams. Gotta pull for those local boys!

@jaybate-1.0 I didnt see the UK game against UCinn. Or the other one. But I did read very intently about the SMU game. Seems to me that someone didnt want Larry Brown at 77, coaching a mid major team SMU to beat a holier than thou UCLA program. But wait, didnt LB coach UCLA before he got to KU? I dont know JB, I think there is some shady stuff going on in our favorite sport. It does not make me happy.

@HighEliteMajor It was not long ago, just recently in fact, I read on ESPN some piece on legalizing sports betting for College ball, outside of Vegas. Refs affecting game out comes, and some write up on legalizing sports betting? Can't prove it but it can't be coincidence.

@Lulufulu

I suspect there may still be some bad blood between the NCAA and SMU, dating back to Mustang football and their death penalty. There is a lot to that story.... including some likely bad blood between SMU and other southern universities.

States legalizing pot, college sports gambling... what's next, legalizing prostitution?

@drgnslayr Wooo hooo! Legalize it! LMAO

@Lulufulu

Look at all the "sin taxes" it raises!!!

@drgnslayr HA! Like syntax! Thats a good one ;)

@JayhawkRock78 But, technically, the refs made the right call. The fault, if there is a fault, lies with the SMU player that made a bad play.
Sorry, I'm not buying the conspiracy stuff on that game.

@Hawk8086

What is the rule that says a shot falling outside the cylinder cannot be rebounded by a defensive player or grabbed and dunked by an offensive player? Just curious?

@jaybate-1.0 Judgement call by the ref....as to whether it has a chance to go in.
Does anyone think that the ref could say..."Ok end of game, here' smy chance....I'll make this last call that screws SMU"
JB...I love ya man, but you're whipping the board into a conspiracy frenzy.
Just like I said to HEM one time....you remind me of Lardass in Stand by Me......you get the crowd going and then just sit back and watch the havoc that you have wrought.
Next, I suppose you're going to tell me that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.....I mean he did learn how to shoot like that in the Marines!
:)

At least reviewed?

@jaybate-1.0 I should have said...judgement as to whether it is outside the cylinder.

@Hawk8086

That's what I figured. 😄

It was completely out of the cylinder. Not even close. So far outside the cylinder that 3 refs calling the game from the cheap seats would have seen it. The burden is on you to prove how three guys could blow the call. 😄

You know, I love you too, and I am soooo used
to raising issues that folks have not looked from certain angles and hearing the conspiracy scare card played and then having what I raise become conventional wisdom within a year or so that I just don't worry about it any more.

Oooooh, conspiracy!

Conspiracy boo!

😀

@jaybate-1.0 Judgement part of the rule was bad ....but not as obvious as you say....especially without the benefit of replay.

Then replay it! Doesn't happen that often, wouldn't slow the game down. It was a bad call!

@Hawk8086

MORE obvious than I say. I saw it clearly on TV before the replay at a worse angle than any of the refs had. And I was just a kiddy game ref.

@jaybate-1.0 I can see why they would initially see that a part of the ball was within the cylinder....

@Crimsonorblue22 Was that type of play reviewable?

No, need to change it, bet they do after that call.

@jaybate-1.0 There is not a doubt in my mind that Bookies, Television Networks, & Select Referees work in unison and/or independently to control certain outcomes of some games.

People just laugh it off with "conspiracy theory" talk.

People would have called the ShoeCo topic a conspiracy until Pitino outed them.

If a fan so much as brings up referees having an impact on the outcome, they are almost immediately ostracized. This, in and of itself, has allowed for the referees to hide behind their wrongdoings.

@Hawk8086 said:

Next, I suppose you're going to tell me that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone....
Edit:
The JFK
Report will be released soon in 2017.

@Blown Let me know what that says......

@Hawk8086 It's going to say: If you can't win by yourself, then cheat to win. Signed, LBJ.

If you are watching Duke they just got a call that will benefit them greatly! Sucked

@Crimsonorblue22

I'm watching them now... some painful officiating. They swallowed their whistles on the Utah end.

Really bad call!

@drgnslayr wrights 3rd call, horrible

@Crimsonorblue22 easy peasy now duke is already up by 10.after that bogus call

@Blown Never understood the conspiracy theories behind LBJ, nothing sticks. Great book out there by Gerald Posner called, "Case Closed." One of the great points of the book is that it's so hard to accept that such a consequential human being could be killed by such an inconsequential man. So we look for a deeper meaning behind the murder, a conspiracy if you will. Perhaps that's the same reason we Kansas fans hurt so much when we lose to the likes of UNI, VCU, and WSU! How can the great Kansas basketball program fall to these guys??

I'm trying to decide if I'm supporting the typical "Duke officiating" in a Duke vs UK game.

I'd kind of like to see Okafor foul out every footer on UK and get them down to a small team.... forcing the twins to play in the post.

Wouldn't that be fun to watch! Finally... a fun UK game!

I'm not a Duke fan but I'd like to see someone spoil the squids team of trees.

@VoyagingJayhawk nuleaf needs to pick that book up for his summer reading!!

@drgnslayr I can't support Duke either!

@Crimsonorblue22

But you have to pick.... Duke or UK... who is it going to be?

I'll take rat face over the squid any day of the week!

@drgnslayr not there yet!!

Hey, we've all seen Utah come back when down big at half haven't we? This is far more manageable. Keep fightin' Utes!

@VoyagingJayhawk that bad called killed them!

@Crimsonorblue22 I agree with ya, that was just awful.

Fouled sucked on Spangler too!!!

Just switched to the OU-MSU game. Lot of defensive breakdowns for Michigan State, Oklahoma taking advantage. Hope they represent the Big 12 well and make a push.

@VoyagingJayhawk Me too. And, Utah is 5 down at the half to Duke. Box score says Okafor is having problems with Utah's size.

@drgnslayr Doesnt UK have to fly in a plane to their next game? just sayin...

@VoyagingJayhawk I respect your opinion. This is such a divisive topic, that will likely never have all truths publicly revealed. I've read thousands of pages of literature on the subject, and have come to my own strong opinion just as you have. The important thing to me is that as long as it's not resolved I keep an open mind to both sides of it.

@Blown In my experience it's become a very addictive subject of study! The feeling is mutual, always respect those opinions that differ from yours! Just need DC and Topeka to do the same.

@Lulufulu did you see Winslow celebrating his 3 and get beat down court? Instant bench by me!

@Hawk8086

You seem interested in conspiracy. You have used the term, whereas I have not.. I confess I am not up to speed on conspiracies. They are so tough to substantiate, especially If done by pros, that I don't think about them much. What is the point?

But since you appear interested in them and in JFK, the citizen in me, who has never read systematically about this subject--but have lived with a sad memory of my grade school teacher weeping and telling our class that our beloved President had died from being shot, plus the recollection a day or so later of watching Jack Ruby gut shoot Oswald who had claimed to be a patsy live on TV--has to ask you something.

Didn't the Church Committee Investigation and hearings end the discussion of whether there was a conspiracy in the JFK. assassination long ago? I thought all the debate since, which I have never followed closely, had been about how many shooters there were, 1 or more, and who hired them? Right? Holy cow! Did I misunderstand the Church Commitee all these years? I kind of stopped thinking about it much after that, figuring any conspiracy capable of whacking our President and getting away with it for a decade was likely never going to be found out.

Do you know some binding government inquiry since the Church Committe that proves some thing different? I don't keep up much with this stuff. The last thing I recall was a non binding but seemingly credible National Geographic inquiry I read in a doctor's office a year or two ago that concluded unequivocally that JFK was assasinated by a conspiracy and probably by more than one shooter, if I recall correctly.

You sound informed about Oswald and the JFK assassination. Has there been some new binding government finding I have missed? Or do you think National Geographic AND the Church Committee are lying, or involved in conspiracy?

I tend to trust the Church Committee and all these years later the National Geographic.

But I haven't read systematically all these years to reach a fully informed opinion as you perhaps have.

If you say I have missed something, then I reckon it would be my duty as a citizen to read up on this issue further.

Rock Chalk!

@Crimsonorblue22 That absolutely cracked me up. I'd like to think 90's Coach K benches him but he also pampered Laettner so perhaps not. By the way, that 30 for 30 almost made me hate him more. I'll admit I have a secret respect for Coach K though.

@jaybate-1.0 Never heard of Jack Ruby claiming to be a patsy, in fact he took a much more righteous position and claimed to have killed Oswald out of pure patriotism and moral obligation; for our country and Jackie and her children. I know most don't want to see this conversation on the boards so I'll try and keep it short. I equivocate the 'Kennedy conspiracy' with the '9/11 conspiracy.' So many people like to moan about the inefficiency of our government and the total dysfunction that plagues it. Yet, when it comes to these conspiracies that could only have been elaborate and complex in nature, our government agencies and employees somehow morph into a highly effective and secretive bureaucracy. I don't buy it. You kill Oswald, then you have to kill Jack Ruby, and the man who killed Jack Ruby, and so on and so forth. The logic doesn't add up. Not to mention, Oswald's feat of two well-aimed shots out of three in 9 seconds was not miraculous and totally in the realm of possibility for any average Marine rifleman.

@drgnslayr said:

@Crimsonorblue22

But you have to pick.... Duke or UK... who is it going to be?

I'll take rat face over the squid any day of the week!

The TV does not need to be on at that point.

Maybe the NCAA has an agenda about who should NOT advance in the tournament. I read that Larry and Roy are both gonna be on the hot seat now that they're through with Boeheim.

@jaybate-1.0 One of these days, I'll learn to use the sarcasm font.

Well, hell, if we are to peer into conspiracy theories, what about the TIMING of NCAA investigations and subsequent effects of news releases of rule violations? Actually, our very own 2015 Jayhawk collapse appears to have hinged more than somewhat on the Alexander Issue. Our league opponents are probably squealing, "Yeah, yeah, the NCAA held off announcing that info until after Bill Self and KU had pretty much nailed down that 11th consecutive conference crown!"

@VoyagingJayhawk Let me ask you this then, from a ballistics standpoint. How does one bullet pass directly through Kennedy -- clean hole in the back, clean hole in the front (throat). And then a second essentially explode his head? That to me would indicate two types of bullets. One with a full metal jacket (passing straight through) and the second with a hollow point (exploding upon impact). That has always been my biggest doubt. Remember the "pristine" bullet supposedly found on his stretcher? Compare to a bullet that literally disintegrated in his head.

The 9/11 conspiracy stuff is much different than the Kennedy stuff. There is a plausible explanation and argument that Oswald did it absolutely alone, but there are plausible arguments that he did not do it absolutely alone -- and that's the only issue in a conspiracy. Did he do it absolutely alone with no other involvement?

@Crimsonorblue22 ahhh i didnt watch the game, just the box scores

@VoyagingJayhawk

Sorry for the ambiguous writing. I meant Oswald claimed to be a patsy.

So you agree with the Church Committee and the National Geographic that a conspiracy assassinated JFK and you are not one of those anti conspiracy nuts? Good.

You just think the conspiracy hired one shooter, right? And it hired confirmed US Intel spook Lee Harvey Oswald for the job, when there were many more qualified and experienced assassins available, right? In order to make it look like the Intel world--Soviet, Castro Cuba, etc.-- hired him, right? And the conspiracy wanted to do it on the cheap without a team?

And one of Sam Giancana's guys--Jack Ruby--so loved the President--a President sleeping with Sam's girl Judith--that he decided to whack Lee in front of the cops, right?

And Lee could make 2 great shots that record as three, and the one shot could do the crazy trajectory changes that Kansas boy made good Arlen Specter asserted, right?

And more killing would have been required than silencing US Intel spook Oswald, who was claiming patsy status?

Hmmm.

This is why I mostly left this stuff behind after the Church Committee findings. i saw Stone's JFK for entertainment (great entertainment) and found the National Geographic story (sound and informative to this Rip Van Winkle of JFK Research) in my doctor's office. I just am not qualified to figure this out with the evidence destroyed and more still classified and lots of books and articles written by anti conspiracy nuts and pro conspiracy nuts.

All that I accept is there was apparently a conspiracy that killed JFK, that Spook Oswald claimed to be a patsy, and he was silenced by a gun running strip club operator and associate of a Chicago mobster, and the mobster's girlfriend slept with JFK. And this all happened after the mob helped JFK win election in places like Chicago and West Virginia, etc. And it happened after JFK failed to deliver Cuba for the mob (casinos) and for the sugar trust (sugar, land and oligopoly benefits), after JFK s-canned Allen Dulles at CIA and authorized the Special Forces and SEALS to report straight to him, and after JFK printed his own currency--$4 Billion silver certificates--that he could use at his discretion to fund special forces and SEALS perhaps if his authority were challenged as a result of the preceding. Oh and he was inadequately protecting the Golden Triangle of heroin, oil, tin and rubber in Southeast Asia, while, as I said, setting up his own Praetorian guard of special forces and SEALS that could take over operations in that region from CIA and the ousted Dulles. And JFK was the first since Lincoln to print his own currency and the last.

These are the few facts I have kept in mind all these years, while the anti-conspiracy nuts and pro conspiracy nuts have spewed out books that I have been told often try to marginalize these facts, and focus on minutiae while truckloads of evidence are reputedly destroyed, missing or classified, and they can't even find the President's brain! Even Inspector Clousseau could not accidentally solve this beyond a reasonable doubt! How can I?

But I don't buy your logic that the killing had to go beyond JFK and Oswald. Killing JFK and Oswald, plus losing evidence plus classifying tons of evidence solved all the problems but public doubt, which rarely solves anything.

Hey, after all these years, this is kind of fun. Maybe at this late date I can become a "JFK researcher." 😄

Not!

Rock Chalk!

@VoyagingJayhawk

"Not to mention, Oswald's feat of two well-aimed shots out of three in 9 seconds was not miraculous and totally in the realm of possibility for any average Marine rifleman."

The accuracy is very plausible. I know several sportsmen that could probably be successful 3 out of 3 with a similar firearm and with stock sights.

@jaybate-1.0

You should publish your thoughts on Kennedy. I'll buy a copy!

@REHawk

Interesting. This does feel vaguely like speculating about a possible ground water contamination plume under a closed service station's possibly leaking tanks. Hard to say where it might extend to without systematic inquiry, if it were proven an actual verifiable phenomenon at all.

The crucial thing is to avoid a witch-hunt, which the unsavory types would appropriate for inappropriate ends, and just focus on things actually verifiable.

@VoyagingJayhawk
Youtube Altered History by Douglas Horne. Fairly credible researcher from what I can tell. The subject is fascinating and still disturbs me to this day....
Altered History is somewhat of a slog and will put most people to sleep, however I found it informative.

@rocketdog

Thanks for mentioning it.

Back to the SMU game and call. If the SMU guy is an offensive player in perfect position for a putback slam, no ref anywhere would have called that offensive goaltending. So why would have same ref called it defensive goaltending?

But for this to prove the refs wanted to determine the outcome, it was such an odd play that there is no way that a referee could have in that 2-3 second time span decided he was going to call a goaltending could there have been? Now if the refs had said we'll call a foul on any shot in the lane to help UCLA, well, you could 'justify' that on almost any shot in the lane. But that wasn't the case here, so I'm going to, as the NCAA's attorney, stick to my guns that it was just a bad call that the ref probably regrets after watching it happen in replay.

@wissoxfan83 Don't much believe in conspiracies and you are right about decisions in that time frame. Unfortunately the NCAA didn't think that was a bad call. They thought it was correct. It was good enough that the same ref was calling the game last night between OU and MSU.

One of my favorite plays last night involved a loose ball on the MSU side of the court above the key. An OU player was going for it and I thought would clearly get it. All of a sudden he stopped. Why you might ask? Because a MSU player grabbed him. Clear as a bell. MSU gets the ball and scores. What gets me is that officials can get bang bang charge and out of bounds calls correct a very high majority of the time and yet miss such blatant calls such as the goal tend and the grab. Both of which happen in clear view off all.

@jaybate-1.0 Ahhh Oliver Stone's JFK! Though certainly you enjoyed it as entertainment as I did, people like my father still quote the completely inaccurate lines of Kevin Costner as fact! It's a shame many use that as a source for making a judgment on whether or not it was a conspiracy because there are so many serious works of research on both sides. Now, you reference the "Magic Bullet" which I think you'll find was no magic bullet at all. The seat that Governor Connally rode in was three inches lower and inboard of the President. When the correct position of the seats are taken into account, one finds a straight line from Governor Connally's thigh, to his wrist, to his ribcage, through the President's upper back and finally to Oswald's rifle. Nor was it "pristine" as HEM alluded to. Keep in mind this was a military round meant to pass through the body without breaking up, this is seen as more humane and less likely to cause massive trauma to the body, particularly the internal organs. In my favorite book on this subject, "Reclaiming History" by Vincent Bugliosi, he discusses the extent of the actual damage to this bullet. One notices when looking at the bullet from the base just how badly smashed it had become, lead extruding from the base and the bullet becoming an oval-type shape. The bullet actually weighed something like three ounces less than it's original weight. This was indeed a badly damaged bullet. And remember, it contacted flesh it's entire flight path except twice; once when it nicked the Governor's rib bone and the second time when it hit the Governor's wrist which caused some flattening. The radius, being weaker than most bones in the body, has been known to inflict very little to no damage on bullets.

@HighEliteMajor In regards to the third bullet fired from Oswald, which is my favorite bullet to discuss because it really gets into how the body and particularly the head reacts when struck by foreign objects like bullets. First, the entrance wound in the right-rear of President Kennedy's head immediately dispels any possibility of a shot being fired from anywhere but behind the President. Now, a rough understanding of physics, which is all I have, tells you that the President's head would move only very slightly in the direction the bullet was traveling because of the weight of the bullet compared to the weight of the head. Also, there is natural muscular resistance to being propelled in the direction of an object that strikes you. So the head snap to the rear could not have been caused by the force of a bullet, weighing 1/3 of an ounce, fired from the front. That is precisely what happened, the President's head moved slightly forward AND downward, which is key. I pulled my book out for a qoute here: "The neuromuscular reaction in which the heavier back muscles predominate over the lighter abdominal muscles would have thrown him backwards no matter where the bullet came from."

@rocketdog I'll check it out, thank you! And as stated earlier, I highly recommend "Reclaiming History." A monster of a book but interesting the whole way through.

Enjoyed the discussion with you guys, love how this site seems to have attracted only those capable of engaging in friendly and meaningful discussions. And apologies to those who come here for basketball! Hope it was only a minor annoyance and a matter of scrolling down just a little further.

@wissoxfan83

From the muck raking books I have read that have had sections on actual documented game throwing and point shaving, players and/or refs shape outcomes by intervening as often as discreetly, but as often as necessary and as situations arise and permit, at least that's what I recall. Its been a few years since I read them.

Throwing who wins is rarely the objective of those shaping games. They tend to try to fulfill, or counter, betting spreads in one way or another. I don't know, but perhaps in single elimination tournaments, who wins might also influence their actions. I haven't read anything that commented on that distinction one way or the other.

This sort of corruption appears not to be tightly choreographed. Rather, a game presents a series of possession-opportunities and corrupt players and/or refs would intervene as expediently as required.

One book described a preference for players to intervene via defensive lapses, and refs to intervene via no calls, because errors of ommision are reputedly harder to gauge than errors of commission.

Why didn't you call that is easier to defend with "I didn't see it," than is why did you call that with "because I..."

However, it is hardly a science.

And I can at least imagine high stakes situations, where there might be significant pressure to make a decisive impact late in a game, when the opportunity presented itself.

I am only speculating here, but it would seem there might be at least two types of interventions.

Early game: The first type might be to structurally bias the game in its early stages to the favor of the desired winner Team A. One might call an asymmetric number of fouls on Team B to hamstring its defense for the rest of the game.

Late game: The second type might come on the heels of the former type. As the game winds down through the last ten, or five minutes, one favors Team A , which has already been advantaged, as much, or as little, as is needed to deliver the score to the spread desired.

We can learn something about inappropriate interventions in games from the coaches that have over the years sought to enable their teams to be able to foul more by fouling frequently from the beginning to "normalize" the fouling from the start. If fouling is frequent early, the refs appear to call quite a few fouls early, and if the fouling continues, there appears to come a point in the game where the refs finally give up and permit a rougher game than they started out trying to permit.

It occurs to me that if referees were involved in cheating, more frequent errors of commission early might condition and so desensitize most involved, involved including fans, to view this kind of error of commission as "just a part of the game."

Regarding this goal tending call, it is an error of commission, if it were anything inappropriate at all, so it does not fall into the reputedly preferred way for refs to intervene. This favors your point of view.

On the other hand, it was a close game, and SMU was about to beat UCLA by some amount of points. The call made highly probably UCLA would win by a given margin.Have you looked at the point spread on the game? I haven't. Might it have helped that in some way? Alternatively, did UCLA help attendance and/or viewership?

Not sayin'.

Just wonderin'.

@jaybate-1.0 did you see the duke game last night ? Ref called a foul with 7 tenths of a second remaining and the score beat the spread by one point after a made free throw. Noteworthy.

@jaybate-1.0 Would be intriguing to sit down for a beer with Larry Brown, catch him "off the record" for an opinion on this matter. I am certain that, over his extended career, he has developed a FEEL for such possibly corrupt happenings.

@REHawk need a keg!

Well I hope that they don't mess anything up today or tomorrow because I still have a perfect final four!

@wissoxfan83 Who do you have from the East?

@Hawk8086

I've got Michigan State, and UW, uk and duke

@wissoxfan83 Let's go Wisconsin! Your guys are my last, great hope.

@VoyagingJayhawk

Thanks, they're starting pretty well here in the 2nd half obviously.

Boy, this is gonna be a battle!

Starting to believe @jaybate-1.0 and his refereeing conspiracy theory right now.

@VoyagingJayhawk But my reference was to ballistics .. I am not referring to what you mentioned. I was referring to the injuries. A full metal jacket bullet will penetrate, stay in its general form, and exit. Thus the "pristine" bullet (supposedly) found on the stretcher.

However, the bullet that struck Kennedy's head was clearly a hollow tip bullet, and a hollow tip that fragmented, as noted by the autopsy.

This would mean that Oswald's one gun, fired two different types of bullets.

@wissoxfan83 Sam Dekker is a MAN!

@wissoxfan83 Wow. Good calls

@approxinfinity

And you spelled his name right too!! That was the first time I've seen him look Larry Birdish or something like that. And it came at the right time.

@wissoxfan83 @Jesse-Newell tweeted regarding Wisconsin and I quote," The nation's top offense doesn't seem to be scared of Fools gold"

@HighEliteMajor Sorry for the confusion, I tried to limit the length of my post which resulted in me missing your point. Quite simply, the reason the bullets behaved differently is because of where the two bullets struck. The first bullet struck and then tumbled almost entirely through human tissue. The third bullet was indeed the same type of bullet as the one that struck both the President and the Governor. Striking the hard skull of President Kennedy broke apart the metal jacket bullet and similar results can be seen in two different experiments conducted. The behavior of the third round fired is indeed not inconsistent with any other similar bullet. I'll post a link here to a rather lengthy ballistics review that explains this in a much more clear and concise manner.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/pdf/lattimer.pdf ↗

The information relevant to this particular point begins on page 29 of the review.

@VoyagingJayhawk I will read the link ... thanks.

@wissoxfan83

Hypothesis.

On Wisconsin!

@Blown

Missed it. Thx for the heads up.

@REHawk

It would be fascinating to talk to LB about anything.

I don't know what a coach might decide to do.

If something were going on a large scale, it could be very costly for any one coach to speak out.