OT: 1972 Olympic Men's Bball USSR vs. USA

[upstater]

I always took it for granted that this was the biggest cheat ever because announcers always say so, but after watching it, I'm not too sure.

The fiasco at Marquette in 2013 was a bigger cheat than this was.

I know there is some irregular stuff from the British federation chief telling the refs to reset the clock to 3, but outside of the fact that he had no authority to do that, the clock should have been set to 3 as the USSR coach signaled clearly for a timeout.

If this were an NBA game and a team inbounded the ball before the clock was reset, they would run the play over again.

I don't see that the Russian team itself did anything wrong and it seems they were MORE deserving than the US BUT again, the federation chief should not be reminding the refs of what should be obvious in the first place.

 

[uconnfan68]

It was the biggest cheat ever. You were right the past 49 years after all.

 

[Conndog]

It's funny, when I was watching at age 15, sure I was disappointed that the US lost, but then I heard the reporting about how Russia cheated to win the game- and I looked for it, but I didn't see anything. The center or forward for Russia that scored the winning basket- was his name Alexander Belov?- he got the ball on a long pass, just put the ball up and scored, a US defender tried to stop & missed defensively and maybe fell, but Belov did nothing wrong that I could see.

 

[alexd]

Do you guys realize the Russians were actually given three chances to inbound the ball at the end???

1972 Olympic men's basketball final - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[upstater]

Do you guys realize the Russians were actually given three chances to inbound the ball at the end???

1972 Olympic men's basketball final - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I referred to this in my opening post. The first time the Russian coach called a timeout, which you could see clearly on the replay. The second time the refs let them inbound the ball before the clock was reset as you could hear the horn go off before the player even caught it. That's ref incompetence, but if it happened right now in the NBA, they'd get another chance to inbound with the clock reset correctly.

The only thing that was wrong was that the British federation president told the refs to put 3 on the clock. Now, there should have been 3 on the clock, but that's the refs' job, not the fed. president's job. If the refs blow it, then so be it. Tough for the Russians.