[Adam]

Not sure if you can read this from up there on your high horse, but....

Rut did not make a sweeping generalization. "the media are at it again" can easily be backed up by specific examples of goofs in the media. Hell, he could have easily said "ESPN is at it again...." For examples of officiating and rules misinformation, one need only look Doug Gottlieb's body of work. You can add to that Coach Knight, now that he's in the media; and most other former coaches for that matter.

Just do a search in this sight for Doug Gottlieb and you'll get your "specific examples."

Finally, when a fan comes in here and asks about a specific ruling, we are pretty accomodating with rule information. We've even been known to indicate an official may have (gasp) missed a call. What we really don't take lightly, however, are accusations of general incompetence from fans and/or inexperienced officials or accusations of cheating.

BTW, if you want a specific example, you could either look at the Georgetown game from last year where everyone said the ref missed an obvious travel when replays showed it was, at best, debatable. Or, all the talk about the marginal, possible missed OOB call on the shot that may or may not have gone over the backboard before going in.

Couple years ago there was a correctable error in the Iowa State/Kansas game down in Lawrence. Refs handled it by the book, which looked like a screw job in favor of Kansas. Local commentator went off, saying there's no way they would have done it that way if the game was in Ames or if the roles had been reversed. I emailed him and told him the rules were followed, and that the officials would have been reprimanded for doing it any differently.

His response, in essence. "I don't care what the rules say, I think they would have done it different if the home team wasn't the one benefiting."