I know at least on the half court pass, the initial lead official (not sure if it was Higgins or Burr), took himself out of position to help on this play by being in the middle of the paint for some reason. The hail mary could be disputed by some...the missed out of bounds call was concrete and can not be argued by anyone hence the reason those two seemed to have gotten it worse in the "court of public opinion."

Burr should have positioned himself to be able to officiate the hail mary. Walton was where he was supposed be on the throw-in.

Agree to a certain extent - but the lead would have been straightlined. Walton was level with the play on the sideline and had a wide-open view.

The two no-calls were the RARE cases where the announcers dumped all over the officials - and I agreed with them. The OOB was just the icing on the cake, IMO. 1.6 sec left would have set up an iffy scoring chance at best for Rutgers (the TI would have been in the backcourt) - but those two non-calls on fouls were huge.

For reference:
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I thought the first no call on the dribble drive with 12 seconds left was a blatant foul and surprised it wasn't called. The halfcourt toss...the center was in great position to see the play...I will admit I thought it was a foul. Still, some could defend some of the judgment calls (which is what happened when we first discussed this ending). No one can defend missing a blatant out of bounds call. And that missing that call gave the appearance that the two officials who could have called the violation did not officiate until the end and assumed the game was over.

On the FT rebound, Higgins was the lead and was standing about 4' INBOUNDS, a position several feet from where he should have been and one that took away any chance he had of helping across the lane with contact. As you said, the C/Walton was also way too high but still should have been able to see it from where he was. Either one could have got that one. There was no reason for Higgins to be that far inbounds. It was as if he was anticipating the make or the rebound to go the other way and wanted to get a head start since he's not so fast. If he has to do that to keep up, maybe its time to retire.

I didn't think the hail mary was a foul. That ball was up for grabs and both players with basically straight up for the ball. Just because one falls down doesn't mean the other one fouled him.

Burr should have had line coverage on the OOB with Higgins providing secondary coverage. Walton, being directly across the court, wouldn't have had any way to reliably tell if the player was inbounds or not.

So, yes, a foul was missed. Fouls are missed. The biggest gaff in that game was the player running OOB with the ball with no whistle....that one falls only on Burr & Higgins. Walton may have been able to save the day but it would have been difficult to see from his spot (which was a correct location form him to be).

I totally agree.

I will add that to me the rebounding situation was not necessarily a foul either. It looked to me like players fell down, not that anyone was necessarily pushed. And that is a judgment call and we make many of those people will disagree with from time to time.

Peace

Looks like it will be

John Cahill
Vern Harris
Doug Showes

In the Finals tomorrow, good crew, should be a great game!

Cahill working back to back title games...not to shabby!

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l5...ntitled-11.jpg

Who's got the first look on this play? Walton at the centre position. Burr could have been a bit closer on the play - but he's behind the last two players, pretty much where he should be. He could have been "wider" - but still probably would have been straightlined. In either case, Walton still would have had the better angle.

If you watch the replays, the Rutger's player clearly catches the ball outright, and then the St. John's player hacks/grabs him across the inside of his forearms, which causes him to lose the ball and fall backwards onto the floor. Foul.

If the catch had been "iffy" or the ball "up for grabs", I agree, a no-call is the way to go. But the pass was bang-on, and the Rutger's player timed his jump well enough to secure control of the pass. He deserves protection from excessive contact that takes away the play he just made.

I can live with the no-call on the rebound, given all the chaos off the missed FT. But that play on the pass should have been called.

Agree wholeheartedly that falling asleep on the OOB with 1.7 left was an egregious screw-up by Burr/Higgins. My original point was that it was the cherry on top of an extremely bad last minute or so.

Actually, it's 3 out of the last 4. Not only did he work last year's game, but also the 2008 final in San Antonio.

Also, in 2009 he worked one of the semis.

2007 was the last time that he did not work one of the games at the Final Four.

There is absolutely no reason for Burr to be behind the last 2 players on this play. He could have officiated those 2 players from the free throw line extended. It would have given the crew inside and outside coverage of the attempted catch.

In the unlikely scenario that Rutgers would have attempted to throw a pass 90' to the deepest player Walton is more than fast enough to have made his way down the court to help and Burr would have only had to move 12-13' once he saw where the pass was going.

But he is not capable of moving that distance in that amount of time. :eek:

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