NCAA Men's Tournament Discussion (2024)

[Rich]

40 officials chosen for regionals. So eight that worked the second round don't advance:

Nate Harris
Verne Harris
KB Burdett
Gregory Nixon
Nathan Farrell
Bill Covington
DJ Carstensen
Vladimir Voyard-Tadal

The last 2 worked the Alabama/Grand Canyon game and it's the only game not advancing at least 2 officials.

[Nevadaref]

How the KenPom officials rankings are derived:

“The problem with this idea is that I have no way of actually grading officials. But officials do get graded by someone and I’m operating on the assumption that the best officials get assigned to the best games. That is surely not precisely true on a daily basis, but over time, if an official is regularly working the biggest games on the national stage, the folks that make such decisions probably think he’s doing a solid job.

In order to assess the quality of a game, I’m using the Thrill Score from FanMatch, imperfect though it may be. But it would seem to capture the things that are important here: opponent quality and game competitiveness. The only other thing we need to account for is the officials’ schedule. The busiest officials can top 100 games in a season. I’m going to value quality over quantity, so I’d prefer not to reward officials for bulk scheduling. In that interest, I’m taking average Thrill Score over the top 50 games that an official works in a season.”

From KenPom.com article Roger Ayers is the best ref
Ken Pomeroy | 01.30.17

[Nevadaref]

I find the above extremely intriguing because this method pinpoints the NCAA tournament officials who are preselected for two assignments in the opening weekend and those who are not. Notice that the lowest KenPom ranked official on each crew in the first round did not work in the second round in 31/32 games. The one exception was 69 advancing over 67. That is remarkable accuracy! Also note how the crews are seemingly constructed for a mostly even strength by distributing the lower ranked KenPom officials over those 32 crews instead of putting them together. It appears that someone coordinating the NCAA officiating assignments is actually using these KenPom rankings to create and assign the crews.

The pattern continued in the second round as 6 of the 8 officials to not advance to the second weekend were the lowest ranked member of the crew. We could inquire if the two exceptions had a noticeable error in the second round game which prevented advancing.

Finally, the Lead official (best ranked by KenPom) on every single game in the tournament so far has advanced to the next round. 100% accuracy is definitely worth noting.

[Nevadaref]

The four lowest ranked officials by KenPom advancing to the second weekend are Morrissey, Anderson, Clark, and Desai. Will those four be the alternates?

[Altor]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

It appears that someone coordinating the NCAA officiating assignments is actually using these KenPom rankings to create and assign the crews.

There's likely a correlation, but it could be that Ken's method of obtaining his scores is just a good way of estimating the evaluation and assignment process that the coordinator of officials is using, which is essentially what the quote suggests was his goal.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

8:20 left second half NV vs Dayton
NCAAM rule is probably different, but would you call this an intentional personal foul in an NFHS game?

The rule is no different. I would probably go Common Foul and then have a word with the coach and/or player about it being borderline.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

10:32 left second half NV vs Dayton. Throw-in violation play.

Throw-in after made basket. The teammate who was coming from inbounds had not attained OOB status when he caught the ball.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

5:44 remaining first half of Kansas v Sanford
Is this worth coming out of your primary and in front of your partner to call?

I think it's the Center's play b/c the Trail is watching the throw-in. With 5 players in the BC, the Center should not have been that high. He should been down near the FTLE, and then it doesn't look like such a long-distance call.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

13:34 left second half NC St v TX Tech.
Does the defender commit BI or a T?

This is an excellent play to discuss. I would like to see opinions on this.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by IUgrad92

Around 1:45 left first half Mich St/Miss St.

OOB play under Mich St. basket. Called OOB by Mich St., but appeared that after being completely OOB, looks like Mich St. player got 'something in and nothing out', then batted the ball to keep it inbounds.

(1H/2:05)--looked like his left foot was still OOB when he touched the ball

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by IUgrad92

0:48 left second half FAU/NW.

Backcourt violation on NW. FAU given the ball clost to half-court, but only given a 20 second shot clock?

Should not have been a BC violation since the defense deflected the ball at least once (probably twice) on that play. But since a BC violation was called, it was administered properly with the shot clock set at 20 seconds and the throw-in from the 28' line.

I wonder why the deflected throw-in at 0:49 of OT wasn't reviewed. NW deflected it and FAU did not touch it, yet the NW was given possession. It would have been no harm to review and would have corrected an IC that went against the team that was losing.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

5:09 left in the second half of Utah St v TCU
Clearest hook & hold foul that I’ve seen, but the crew reviews it and goes with a common foul. What am I not understanding?

I think they called the foul on the initial contact when both players were airborne and then he pulled the opponent down after they both landed. Assuming they judged it not worthy of a dead-ball technical foul.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

I find the above extremely intriguing because this method pinpoints the NCAA tournament officials who are preselected for two assignments in the opening weekend and those who are not. Notice that the lowest KenPom ranked official on each crew in the first round did not work in the second round in 31/32 games. The one exception was 69 advancing over 67. That is remarkable accuracy! Also note how the crews are seemingly constructed for a mostly even strength by distributing the lower ranked KenPom officials over those 32 crews instead of putting them together. It appears that someone coordinating the NCAA officiating assignments is actually using these KenPom rankings to create and assign the crews.

The pattern continued in the second round as 6 of the 8 officials to not advance to the second weekend were the lowest ranked member of the crew. We could inquire if the two exceptions had a noticeable error in the second round game which prevented advancing.

Finally, the Lead official (best ranked by KenPom) on every single game in the tournament so far has advanced to the next round. 100% accuracy is definitely worth noting.

I think the correlation is that these are the officials who work the best conferences, the best games. You would think those are who's seen as the better officials. It's why I included the rankings, though, cause I wanted to see how well they predict who advances, etc.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

The four lowest ranked officials by KenPom advancing to the second weekend are Morrissey, Anderson, Clark, and Desai. Will those four be the alternates?

Clark is on the UConn/San Diego State game with Roger Ayres and Tony Henderson. Listing I saw has Clark as the U1 on the game.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Raymond

This is an excellent play to discuss. I would like to see opinions on this.

My first reaction is that I would call it the same as the officials on the floor.