Tim Higgins

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by VaTerp

And as an official, it does not matter one bit that the coaches didn't coach until the end of the game (whatever that means). Bottom line is that was a REALLY bad miss at the end of the game by this crew. We all miss calls but one of the main points that they guy who trained me stressed was to always officiate to the end of the game. It seems that this crew did not do that today.

This really can't be argued imo also. They screwed up and that fact won't change. They also deserve the flak they're getting for their officiating mistake. What they don't deserve is the personal crap some people are throwing at them. Saying their careers should be over for something like this is just plain ridiculous imo, especially when it comes from so-called fellow officials who have never worked on a stage like that.

Officials are human, not machines.

[VaTerp]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

This really can't be argued imo also. They screwed up and that fact won't change. They also deserve the flak they're getting for their officiating mistake. What they don't deserve is the personal crap some people are throwing at them. Saying their careers should be over for something like this is just plain ridiculous imo, especially when it comes from so-called fellow officials who have never worked on a stage like that.

Officials are human, not machines.

Agree with all of the above.

My somewhat educated guess as to what happened is the crew was tired after working a close, competitive, Big East post season game. When they saw St. Johns come up with the loose ball after the long inbound pass they likely exhaled, lost mental focus for a second, and before they knew it the kid did something goofy.

Oh shhhh..... there's time on the clock, he's clearly out of bounds, and .......nobody has a whistle.

I'm not gonna personally attack anyone and that crew has done more in officiating than I can even hope to right now BUT they had a mental lapse at a critical time on a significant stage. And IMHO it's likely was due to fatigue and their age doesnt help with that. Burr and Higgins both should have had an OOB there. PERIOD. All of us have missed calls and had mental lapses and all of us know this increases when you are fatigued.

I actually got on talk radio today about this today and my three points were:

1) Mike Rice is a good coach (IMSBO) and went above and beyond to NOT blame the officials.

2) As a basketball official the only thing I'm going to question is the OOB. It's the most difficult sport to officiate, there's a lot of judgement, etc. but to miss the OOB there is an inexcusable moment for that crew and not a good moment for the craft.

3) Younger officials need to be brought up into the big time mix a little/lot more. Because I do think that there are SOME older officials who are still getting a full schedule of the highest level of ball when they should probably be getting a few more nights off.

JMO

[26 Year Gap]

+1 ^ We've all made mistakes. We've all had bad games. It doesn't mean we are bad officials. Fortunately, most of us will not have those mistakes analyzed, re-analyzed, second-guessed & criticized nearly to the extent that these guys have experienced in the past few days. The down side of course, is that "Don Denkinger Syndrome" could kick in. And that would be a shame. And this, from a Royals fan.