Quote:
Originally Posted by rulesmaven
According to yahoo sports, at least, the NCAA itself revealed the 10 who drew the assignments; the article implies it was done to increase transparency in light of the public discussion of officiating in the last few weeks. Guys in stripes have own bracket - College Basketball - Rivals.com
The weirdest part of the article is this:
"Game assignments for the first semifinal will be announced an hour before tip-off of that game. Assignments for the second semifinal will be announced at halftime of the first game, and the officials for the national championship game will be announced an hour before that contest. No official works more than one game during the weekend."
Once the crew gets announced for the second semi-final at halftime of the first, you'd have to be pretty stupid not to be able to figure out who the crew for the final will be. Isn't it a pretty signficant departure for the NCAA to have the names of the championship officials out there in the public for 48 hours? I know that traditionally, they are not even supposed to be on site until after the semis. Though it's not always a particularly closely guarded secret, I thought they were worried about public perception that coaches would coach to a particular official or crazy conspiracy theories about vegas dudes with paper bags of money. |
Your Vegas theory is actually pretty accurate. Knowing who the officials are for a game of this level could shift the line significantly. I have 'friends' in the 'gaming industry' and this has been a concern for them. It is not as important during "regular" games because the amount of money isn't as significant as the money on the Final Four games. Ironically, he said the same can not be said about the Super Bowl. Partly b/c the money differential between a slate of regular season games versus "The Big Game" is not that large. I would hazard a guess that knowing the officials working the weekend but not which game would not impact the line that much.
Take it for what it is worth! So far this tournament has been financially advantageous for me!! The same can not be said about my bracket LOL