Sorry if someone has posted this already, but I read it this morning. Zilgitt gives us some initial lip service about how hard the job of officiating is, and then rips all the controversial calls from the tournaments. And since he mentions this website, maybe we'll see an uptick in "fanboy" traffic. Enjoy...
Blowing the whistle on shoddy NCAA officiating
Referees impact every game.
One way or another, either by calling ticky-tack fouls or letting most things go.
What coaches, players and fans want from basketball officials is consistency. That's what all refs strive to achieve. It just doesn't always happen, and few things in a game infuriate like inconsist officiating.
A preface: Let's get this out of the way now. Officiating is a difficult, thankless job in which calls must be made instinctually in a split second. Without knowledge of a particular situation, refs don't have agendas, don't carry grudges and don't have it out for a particular team, coach or player at the college level.
There were many questionable calls and no-calls in NCAA basketball tournaments men and women. That's to be expected in intense, consequential basketball games.
It just seems there were more controversial calls (or no-calls) at crucial moments this year.
The topic has stirred up debate on sports radio, on the sports pages and on
http://www.officialforum.com, a Web site for referees and interlopers to discuss issues.
Referees should be subject to criticism just like players and coaches. There's no reason officials should be off limits.
There was the controversial call on Baylor at the end of the Tennessee women's game in which a ref called a foul on a Baylor player with two-tenths of a second left in a tie game. It was a perfect time for a no-call. Instead, Tennessee made two free throws and won the game.
In the Nevada-Gonzaga men's game, Gonzaga's Ronny Turiaf picked up two fouls in the first five minutes and his third a questionable charging call with 11:07 left in the first half. The call seemed to coincide with the momentum Nevada had seized. It was an instance where the ref seemed to be caught up in the action, intentional or not. Everything went Nevada's way, including the calls.
(A note about charging calls: It is the most difficult call to make. But there are too many charging calls when the offensive player with the ball drives to the bucket and jumps and the defender slides into position (as the said offensive player jumps) underneath or near the basket. Charging should not be called in those situations since the offensive player cannot change directions in the air and the defender wasn't in the spot when the offensive player started his move. A ref whistled Kentucky's Kelenna Azubuike for such a charge in the Wildcats' loss to UAB. College should adopt a rule similar to the NBA where charging is not called inside the arc in the lane, near the basket.)
Who wanted to watch the UConn-Duke men's semifinal game with Emeka Okafor on the bench for the final 16:04 of the first half with two fouls? The second foul was a cheap touch foul in which Okafor had his arms straight up, and Duke's Luol Deng initiated contact.
The Duke-UConn game had little flow it, due in part to the 44 fouls called. Let them play. There is contact. It's basketball. It can be physical. But refs need to do a better job of determining when contact is worthy of a foul and when it's not. The play with Okafor and Deng would have been another perfect no-call.
While the call did not influence the men's title game between UConn and Georgia Tech, the foul on the Yellow Jackets' Luke Schenscher as Ben Gordon attempted a three-pointer was a marginal call.
Mistakes will be made. Players make them. Coaches make them. So do the refs. I'd rather see the refs let them play rather than ruin the game by calling everything.
Fans don't tune in to see a ref hit Okafor with two fouls in the first four minutes. If they're legit fouls, call them. But it's not the ref's job to be the show.
The intentional foul call on North Carolina State's Marcus Melvin against Vanderbilt should have just been a foul. What he did was no worse than a defender intentionally fouling a player at the end of the game just to stop the clock and play the free-throw game. Intentional fouls are called rarely in those situations, though it's far more intentional than what Melvin did.
Then, there's this report out of Texas from the Longhorns-Xavier men's game. Brandon Mouton fouled out with 2:09 remaining.
Mouton wanted an explanation from referee Ted Valentine. According to Fort Worth's Star-Telegram, this is the exchange:
Mouton: "Mr. Official, could you please tell me what I did wrong on that play?"
Valentine: "Shut the [bleep] up, man."
Mouton: "Relax, man. Everything's all right. I thought it was a loose ball. I know I had both arms extended going after the ball, but I didn't think I impeded his progress. Can you tell me what you saw?"
Valentine: "This isn't the NBA."
This isn't an indictment on all refs. Or even a majority. It's an indictment on the inconsistency that plagues college games.
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Jeff Zillgitt writes about sports for USATODAY.com. You can send him feedback at
[email protected].