I expect we will see Ayers, Stephens, Higgins, and Sirmons today.

There are 7 guys who worked the regional level in both 2016 and 2017 but have yet to work this years regional with only the Kansas-Duke game remaining:

Doug Sirmons
Gene Steretore
John Higgins
LaMar Simpson
Roger Ayers
Ted Valentine
Tim Clougherty

LaMar is retired or injured I think. Valentine is out. I have it on decent authority that Higgins is out. So that leaves some 3 man combination of Ayers, Sirmons, Steretore, and Clougherty to work Kansas-Duke, barring a surprise.

I'm guessing Clougherty will miss out and Sirmons, Ayers, and Steretore will work in about an hour.

Disagree with AremRed.

There's been a common theme among every regional semi/final crew thus far, and your guess would break the trend.

Steratore iut
 

A guy who works football for Gene was told by Gene he is finished....

Andersen, Sirmons, Ayers for Duke/Kansas game.

2/3 ain't bad. Forgot they needed a black guy and Anderson is the best between him, Covington, and Walton.

All three are pretty good friends......
 

I've never thought any of their accomplishments were race based. Just three good referees and people who just happen to be black...

I am going to say this bluntly. Considering how many Black players are on the floor during games at this level, there should be no questioning of who Black is in those situations. It is still extremely rare to see 3 Black officials ever work a D1 game outside of HBCU conferences. And when they do it is so rare that it is highlighted. When three white guys are working a D1 game where most of the players are Black, do we say, "They got there because of their race"? Nope.

I remember when Kentucky played Indiana in Bloomington some years ago and I was an FB friend of one of the officials. I sent him a text in shock and asked, "They put three Black guys on that game?" He even said to me, "I know right." It amazes me that Blacks can dominate this game in all areas but for some reason when the officials get to a certain level we have to somehow qualify why they are there.

Peace

Should we say they needed 2 White officials, so that's why Doug and Roger are there?

That's the equivalent of what you just said.

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Guys, let's not act like the racial composition of the crew isn't a consideration. Based on the "trend" Matt S. referenced earlier it absolutely is. It isn't wrong of me to point that out.

I couldn't care less if they had crews where all 3 officials were black, white, Asian, Latino, whatever. I just find it interesting that every single crew, save one, during regional play had 2 white officials and one black official.

I believe it is a factor. It is at the high school level. But what cracks me up is that somehow the Black officials have to justify their position and never the white officials, who again are not representative of the players that are mostly on the floor.

Peace

John Higgins has worked the past 5 Final Fours. That streak will likely end this year.

Here's the 10 I predict:

Michael Stephens
Mike Eades
Tony Padilla
Jeff Anderson
Doug Sirmons
Verne Harris
Ron Groover
Terry Oglesby
Jeff Clark
Roger Ayers

On the bubble:
Terry Wymer
Keith Kimble
Mike Roberts
Bo Boroski

Well, I am going throw this out there early....

Final Four Guesses:

Mike Eades (Semi)
Terry Ogelsby (Semi)
Jeff Anderson (Championship)
Doug Sirmons (Championship)
Keith Kimble (Semi)
Mike Stephens (Semi)
Verne Harris (Semi)
Randy McCall (Championship)
Bert Smith (stand by)
Lamont Simpson (Semi)

But also in the mix, Ayers, Clougherty, Gaffney

I’m not a professional mathematician. But I dabble in numbers and I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the odds of 11 of 12 crews having this consistently precise racial distribution absolutely did not happen by coincidence.

What this means in the grand scheme of things? I find myself not caring that much.


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