Best MU news yet---Jim Burr retires

[mcwman]

http://www.syracuse.com/axeman/index...e_whistle.html

[Mark Miller]

Singing in the streets!!!

[farmerdoc]

About time! I was really worried that he was gonna collapse and have a coronary right there on the court! Would anyone have rushed to help?

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

About time! I was really worried that he was gonna collapse and have a coronary right there on the court! Would anyone have rushed to help?

**Grumbles**

I would have. Kind of bound by law to do so, especially inside city limits.

[pbiflyer]

Scout of officials?????? Maybe if he says that the official is doing just what he would have, they will be marked as incompetent.

[farmerdoc]

**Grumbles**

I would have. Kind of bound by law to do so, especially inside city limits.

I hear ya! Ethics shmethics! I would have helped too!

[Nukem2]

He always looked like he was a play behind or making phantom calls from across court. At least he won't have a heart attack on the court.

[Gato78]

I thought he was a good official--I am probably alone in this analysis. That does not mean he was right with every call, far from it. He also had that screw up with Rutgers in the BIG EAST Tournament a few years back when he and Higgins and the third ref left the floor before the game was over. Crean said to me and a couple other posters at a function in Chicago that Burr favored the visiting teams. He clearly had trouble getting up and down the court the past few years. I gave him a lot of grief over the years but in my mind he was better than a lot of the others. Tim Higgins and John Cahill (who runs like a girl) come immediately to mind. there are a lot of bad officials in NCAA Bball so to measure Burr is to compare him to mediocrity. I think he was often confused with Tim Higgins and Higgins was atrocious. He was pretty good with give and take with fans--I had a spirited "discussion" with him at the BC a few games after Vanderbilt beat us in Nashville several years ago. Before I finished my "you robbed us" line he looked at me, knowing exactly what I was referring to, and said: "It was not my call". Burr was arrogant and that showed on the court, which made him easy to hate, but I think he was a good official.

[Nukem2]

I thought he was a good official--I am probably alone in this analysis. That does not mean he was right with every call, far from it. He also had that screw up with Rutgers in the BIG EAST Tournament a few years back when he and Higgins and the third ref left the floor before the game was over. Crean said to me and a couple other posters at a function in Chicago that Burr favored the visiting teams. He clearly had trouble getting up and down the court the past few years. I gave him a lot of grief over the years but in my mind he was better than a lot of the others. Tim Higgins and John Cahill (who runs like a girl) come immediately to mind. there are a lot of bad officials in NCAA Bball so to measure Burr is to compare him to mediocrity. I think he was often confused with Tim Higgins and Higgins was atrocious. He was pretty good with give and take with fans--I had a spirited "discussion" with him at the BC a few games after Vanderbilt beat us in Nashville several years ago. Before I finished my "you robbed us" line he looked at me, knowing exactly what I was referring to, and said: "It was not my call". Burr was arrogant and that showed on the court, which made him easy to hate, but I think he was a good official.

Don't think many of us confused Higgins with Burr. Higgins was very distinctive in his own right and, yes, he was horrible. Burr was always arrogant; but, he was really slowing down the past few years and made some weird calls that were not his to make. Until age caught up, he was at least consistent in his calls.

[MUfan12]

I agree, Gato. You knew what you were getting with Burr. It's the guys like Rutecki, Breeding, and Corbett that drive me nuts. O'Connell is lousy, too.

John Cahill (he of the feminine gait) was terrible as a ref, and hasn't been much better as an administrator.