NCAA Tournament 2011: Who's To Blame for Texas Falling To Arizona?

The Arizona Wildcats eliminated the Texas Longhorns from the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Sunday night on a series of debatable calls and odd-ball situations.

In the last moments of the loss, a number of circumstances broke down, leading to UT's eventual defeat.

Here are a few people that bear some responsibility in the final outcome for the Texas Longhorns game against Arizona:

Corey Joseph

With 14.5 seconds left in the game, the Longhorns were ready to attempt to inbound the ball underneath the Arizona basket, leading 69-67.

Texas' freshman guard, Cory Joseph, was unable to inbound the ball in the allotted five seconds, causing a terrible turnover at a critical time in the game.

It was only one mistake, but one that came at a critical juncture in the game. Joseph is being saddled with a huge part of the blame for this frustrating defeat.  

Tristan Thompson

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Texas freshman forward Tristan Thompson was recently selected as one of five members of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association freshman All-American team.

Sunday night, he had the huge task of guarding Arizona's best player, power forward Derrick Williams.

Williams only scored three points in the first half, but came back to score an additional 13 in the second half.

A pretty decent job on one of the nation's best players.

When Williams got the ball after the infamous "five-second call," he began to drive to the basket and one of his teammates set a pick for him.

Thompson got screened and was left out on the court, leaving Williams momentarily free to go to the basket.

Should Thompson have adjusted before the pick was set?

Should he have fought through the pick?

Did Thompson know he was getting screened? 

Was there a breakdown in communication between Thompson and his teammates? 

Lots of questions. Few answers.  One loss.

Jordan Hamilton

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Jordan Hamilton's line for last nights game was good.

18 points. Six rebounds. Right at about what he has averaged on the year.

The crucial role that Hamilton played in this loss was that he came over on help-side defense after Thompson was screened on Williams' drive to the basket.

Hamilton rotated over as he has done hundreds of times before.

Williams went up and lofted a prayer that went in off the glass. Hamilton was called for a foul.

Hamilton claimed that he "never felt body contact."

Williams' shot was good, and then he made the accompanying free throw.

If Hamilton would have done nothing, Williams would have dunked the ball, tied the game, and Texas would have still had an opportunity for a last shot.

If, at that time, Texas' last attempt fell short...we're going to overtime.

Instead, the Longhorns were headed back to Austin, not Anaheim.

Richard Cartmell: Referee

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One of the key players in last night's Longhorn loss was not a player at all. He was a referee. Richard Cartmell to be exact.

Cartmell did not shy away from the calls that he was involved at the end of the game.

Here are his statements about some of the key plays down the stretch:

Cartmell on the five-second call:

"I had the call. I had five seconds before the kid turned and signaled a timeout. I had to make a decision whether it was five seconds or timeout and I made the decision it was five seconds because I had counted five seconds before he called timeout."

Cartmell on the game's final play:

"We all had a look and didn't have a foul on the play. And the buzzer clearly went off before there was contact up high. So we checked with each other, none of us had a foul, there's no review involved, game over."

Was Cartmell wrong on his out-of-bounds count?

Should he have made the call at that time in the game?

Did he swallow his whistle on the last shot or.... did he simply not call something because he didn't see a foul? 

J'Covan Brown

The reason the Longhorns were in the ball game at all was the shooting and scoring of J'Covan Brown.

He hit all 13 of the free throws that he attempted, and basically was Texas' offense in the later part of the second half.

Brown was also the person who took the last shot of the game.

From a purely shot selection standpoint, he was floating towards the sidelines with a couple Wildcats draped on him. Not the best angle to be shooting from at any point during the game.

While it is hard to blame Brown for the defeat, does he not bear some responsibility with the last shot?

Rick Barnes

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If Rick Barnes had the last moments of last night's game to do over again, what would he do differently?

Would he have used a different player to pass the ball in on "that call?"

Would he have changed defenders or possibly double-teamed Derrick Williams, coaxing him to pass the ball to an open teammate?

Would he have set up a different play for the last shot?

All of these decisions and many others could have been handled in another way, but even though he is not on the court, the coach still bears some responsibility in the outcomes of his team's games.