Ed Hightower

[GoClone]

This was one of the best H&H (Higgins and Hightower) reffed games I have seen in quite awhile. Ed did not take over the game with either his "theatrics" or "obscure rule-book" calls. He did very well I thought.

John Higgins contained himself quite well too. Believe me, John is no friend to Iowa State. He would have thrown in all the favorable calls necessary to allow Texas to come out on top if he had needed to do so. I always hate seeing Higgins at our place in big games against ranked opponents, since we need to be sure and beat him too.

I think John's dad was a major college ref twenty years ago and Junior aspires to be as good as his dad. I can't see it ever happening as Junior is always a visible influence on any game that he refs and good referees are rarely noticed.

There were some missed calls in the game; and there always will be. But much like this Iowa State basketball team on Wednesday, we saw these two refs "A" game. For Ed Hightower and John Higgins it can't get any better.

 

[ricochet]

I thought the fouls were called OK. My gripe was the out of bounds calls. I think I counted 2 we should have had and one that Texas should have had. There were some more that seemed questionable down at the other end but the three that were right in front of me I'm pretty sure were wrong. I don't usually see that many up close so it just seemed unusual.

 

[ISUboi12]

Hightower and crew are doing the Michigan/Indiana game tonight.

 

[cayin]

And it wasnt only him, it was the whole crew...This is the first game that ive seen in the mcdermott era that the team played with heart and conviction..and the refs seemed to have it in for us...2 players were down with injuries(Boozer was hit hard than McCoy in the Title game) and theres no foul on boozer being tackled/he had to be helped off the court after 5 minutes....Everytime that ISU had a chance to run..theres a ticky-tack foul which coincidentally leads to a longhorn 3 point play...I usually don't complain about the refs but these were HORRIBLE...Pittman pitched camp in the lane/goaltended 2x's, James just held on to brackins like a clingy dog...Balbay just got away with soo much..he steps out of bounds when he gets a loose ball..ref is in great position to make the call..do they ?..Absolutely not! Its almost like the refs were paid by the Big 12 so that they could have a number 1 team for more than 1 week...

You saw the same game that I saw. Yes, I thought the refs were horrible tonight. Texas got away with a lot of crap. One of the worse no calls was when Texas was shooting free throws. Of course on free throws the defensive team has inside position on blocks. On one shot Pittman just push right through the blockout. He did not try and go around, he just pushed guys out of the way. It was clearly a foul and of course nothing was called. On the other end, Lucca barely bodies a longhorn on a fast break and of course it get's called. Also, there was a ton of hand checking and holding/grabbing going on that was not being called.

 

[JustRedman]

I watched the game a second time last night and thought, for the most part, it was maybe the best Hightower game I've ever seen.
I told a friend of mine, who is from Chicago, that Hightower and ISU don't play well together, but to my suprise, Eddie did a pretty good job. There were some bad calls...
The 5 second call on Diante was absolute horse sh!t!!!! There is no way he was closely defended that whole time. I was shocked that DG didn't get more upset about the call considering 1) it is never called in BB and 2) it was a BAD call!!

Bottom line, Basketball, more than any other sport, is in the hands of refs. It is the primary reason I will never be a basketball fanatic. Far too many call-on-one-end/no-call-on-the-other.