Last night should have been a huge showcase for the Big Ten having 2 top 5 teams playing within the conference, but instead, it fell flat on its face. I realize that they don't have the ability to "flex" games and at the beginning of the season, this game had no indications that it would be as big as it was, but there is no way in hell that this game should have been on Peacock, where you have to either have YouTubeTV to watch or have to pay for a subscription. In the past, I haven't had a huge issue with the production of the Peacock games, but last night was an embarrassment. I think that the BTN+ student broadcasts have put together a better production than what we saw last night. I seriously thought this was a Michigan home game production. Not only were the broadcasters overtly homerish, they were ill prepared. It was like they called Nik Stauskas an hour before the game and said, "hey, we need you to come do the broadcast for this thing we have going on tonight." I thought it was odd that he would be on TV and compare Pryce Sandfort to himself. Any time Michigan took a 3 pointer when they were down three late, I thought Burmeister was going to bust a nut hoping that it would go in. The camera angles and production value were terrible. They were slow to show replays of calls, if at all. They thought that They thought that Leo Curtis was Reink Mast.
Then on top of that, you put a middle of the road referee crew to do a top 5 game. I didn't have a huge issue with the free throw advantage as I know that can happen sometimes when another team is more physical or aggressive than others, but that no call charge at the end of the game was horrendous. Hell, I would probably be less pissed if they would have called Hoiberg for a block, even thought it was an obvious charge. How you can have that much contact and not call anything is incredible. I just thought the refs were inconsistent all night.
Just a huge miss for the Big Ten last night, IMO.
Then on top of that, you put a middle of the road referee crew to do a top 5 game. I didn't have a huge issue with the free throw advantage as I know that can happen sometimes when another team is more physical or aggressive than others, but that no call charge at the end of the game was horrendous. Hell, I would probably be less pissed if they would have called Hoiberg for a block, even thought it was an obvious charge. How you can have that much contact and not call anything is incredible. I just thought the refs were inconsistent all night.
Just a huge miss for the Big Ten last night, IMO.