And would you please enlighten us as to the officiating credentials that you possess that will allow you to critique and evaluate Burr's performance? What is the highest level that you have officiated at, and how long have you been doing it? And following that, please let us know EXACTLY what calls that Burr wrongly made, and EXACTLY why they were wrong.

I await your answers too.

Mark,

It was a rhetorical question. I guess I wasn't clear. Just making a point that a lot of "big names" went out early this year.

I see no one wants to stand up and give an account for their opinion of Jim Burr. Good comments Jurassic Referee.

Jurassic -- I think you may have been a little over the top on your commments.....By you logic, there should only be talk of middle school/feeder, high school, and maybe some small college games because that is all anyone in here officiates (I'll admit there may be some DII and DI officials in here). By that logic I can't talk about politics (never held elected office), can't talk about movies (not a member of the Screen Actors Guild), and will have to stop complaining about Don Denkiger's horrific call (in favor of the Royals against my St. Louis Cardinals) at first base in the '85 World Series (never been a big league ump).

You more accurate point is to explain or provide details of their complaints. But, as we learned in the Baylor-Tennessee women's tourney game, different officials see/call different things. Very rarely does an official make a call that clearly didn't happen.

Jeff, no one's objecting to the expression of personal opinions. But those opinions shouldn't be the basis for judgment, such as "terrible call" "too old" "doesn't have a clue" (this last is from another thread). Refs have every right to disagree, and often do, but every ref also has the right to have his work respected and treated with dignity. To imply, as some have over the last several days, that a ref is incompetent, or biased, or temperamental, is harsh and unwarranted. The only people who can do that are that ref's assignors, and even then only in private. JR is objecting to the completely emotional and uninformed criticism of refs by people who don't know what they're talking about. That's what a lot of us are kinda hot under the collar about these days.

I agree with Juulie completely. To say that an official is horrible and you have never been on that level is and can be interpreted as complete jealousy. We will get older one day and we will have our time to get criticized if we are good enough. But to do it here is such a cowardly way to do it. Tell that to the individuals face, do not come here and tell the world you are much better than an official that has multiple NCAA Finals and Final Four appearence when you cannot even do D3 yet. And until you get there, you really do not have credibility yet to make those complete accusations.

Just my two cents.

Peace

Found out this morning that NCAA has announced who will work the final four, but only the officials from last weekend and the officials selected know.

NCAA is enforcing a strict privacy policy this year because of the continued risk of gambeling on college sports. We will not know until we watch the games Saturday night and the final on Monday night.

Someone needs to tie the top of the bag tighter...Some of the cats have been let out of the bag... this is a quote from a Denver Sports Columnist, Jim Armstrong. It is from today's Denver Post. Now it will remain to be seen if these are correct but here is the quote.

"For a city that isn't particularly interested in college hoops, Our Town sure produces a lot of big-time officials. To wit: Three local refs will be at the Final Four - Dave Hall, who'll be working the whistle during one of Saturday's semifinal games, and Verne Harris and Randy McCall, who'll work their first national championship game Monday night. McCall is the athletic director at Cherry Creek High School"

FWIW

Even though, it was suppose to be kept a secret...I think that this is a no win battle the NCAA and all high school associations are going to continue to go through when trying to keep it a secret about the officials selected for the championship games in specific sports all across the country.

It's pretty tough.

You have to figure that these guys have to get time off from work. Then they have to tell their families they'll be gone. Work with the travel agency to get tickets, etc.

As Tom Clancy says, the likelihood of a secret getting out is proportional to the number of people who know squared.

I could not agree with more Mark. Trying to get everything worked out to travel for championship game assignments means news is bound to get out one way or another.

So....

Do we know yet who'll be working this weekend?

I think that all we know for sure is:
(a) the guys working there will all be solid, excellent officials.
(b) some stupid dexterhead of a fan will show up here and tell us how bad they were.

:p
No kidding, eh.

I'm kind of hoping to see Clougherty in one of the three games. The guy could be my grandfather, and he can still flat out ref.

Cartmell and Hillary have been solid too, IMO.

Sitton would be a great choice!