Instant Replay.
 

Instant replay needs to be thrown into the trash can immediately. The out-of-bounds calls in the Tennessee-Michigan and Wisconsin-Arizona games are the reason it must be done away with. In each game the game was stopped for well over five minutes. Players and coaches are standing around while the officials pour over super slo-mo videos that may or may not give them anymore information than what they observed in real time.

MTD, Sr.

Make a 30 sec time limit. If you can't tell by then, leave it alone.

There was nothing INSTANT about it. And to their credit, the NCAA only calls it replay, not instant replay.

You right...let's keep the game moving whether the calls are correct or not. In fact, 40 minutes is probably too long. Let's simply employ a first team to score wins. That way we really don't need much of a rule book - maybe only 1 or 2 pages at most.

On second thought, let's just award the victory to the team whose players are paid the most - that way we can simply give the trophy to Kentucky and not even play the season.

C'mon, Mark. You're all about getting right. We need replay because officials make mistakes....get it right. The players, coaches, and the game deserves it.

You sound like an old timer. Accept replay or stop watching.

I am more than an "old timer" I am a "bald old geezer". The game is played by humans. It is coached by humans. And it is officiated by humans. If one could put Google Glasses on each officials, I would bet dollars to donuts that the officials will grade out significantly higher than the players and coaches. In fact, I would bet dollars to donuts that they would grade out at well over 95%.

But the point is, if it takes over five minutes or longer to make a decision over an out of bounds call and all of the close one must be reviewed in the last two minutes of the second half and each OT period, and all the replay does is show that the officials are correct in almost 100% of the times and the one in the Wisconsin-Arizona game was a toss up, how does that improve the game?

MTD, Sr.

If it's that important to get it right, why not make replay available throughout the game? There was a play down in the post where the ball went off the Arizona player as he made a spin move and they gave Arizona the ball back. That wasn't reviewable because it didn't happen under 2 minutes. Something that's reviewable in the last 2 minutes ought to be reviewable in the first 2 minutes.

It's Google Glass, not Google Glasses.

I've thought those would be fun to put on new officials to see what they're really watching. IT would certainly make it easy to show them how much ball watching they're really doing.

Replay rules are always a give and take between getting the call right versus the flow of the game. No one cares about the OOB call at the 10:00 mark in the first half...not enough to hold the game up for any significant period of time. In the final two minutes, with possessions at a premium, that extra possession means a lot more.

Not close to 100 percent of the time..not on OOB calls that are bangers...you (well not you because you don't watch the NBA) will see these type of plays (bangers) changed enough times that it's not rare.

And let's not act as if 5 minutes for an OOB replay is typical. Should they maybe tweak the system so that there's a time limit to the review? Sure. Take replay out of the game? You're living in a dream world.

First prize for best comment of the day :D

You know, I agree with both of you. The delay in the Wisconsin game was ridiculous. At some point, either overturn it or say the original call was inconclusive. A minute is enough time.

Oh, five minutes for an OOB play is ridiculous. I won't argue with that. That's such an anomaly as to how these plays usually play out.

It would seem the referees can't win for losing.

If they get a play like that wrong, everybody and their dog (including us) is freeze-framing it and slapping it up on the internet, and chatting about how they blew it and (others but not us) saying how it cost someone the game.

So they finally have the technology to ensure they get these calls right (wasn't it indicated a while back that the play we collectively get wrong the MOST is OOB?) we don't like the delay.

The delay is annoying, for sure - and, as some have commented, it may give an advantage to a team who is out of time outs. But I think it's worth it to get the play right.

If it's conclusive, they can get it right within a minute. If it's longer than that, it's not conclusive and they should stick with the call on the floor.

Better yet, have fans vote online in real-time. #arizonatippeditlast #pcfoulontennessee

Or.....lock John Adams and Art Hyland in a room full of tv's where they can review plays and issue rules interpretations on the fly.

If only they could track what the eyes are really looking at...do they? Or is it just a view of which way the head is turned? If so, it may or may not tell you what they were looking at.

The key is to centralize the replays in the NCAA tournament. Of course part of all the replays late in the game is that there is no Precision Timing, so the NCAA has itself to blame. People forget in an NBA Finals game between the Celtics and Lakers a few years ago there were three out of bounds replays in the final minute of the game in Boston.

Even the "talking heads" on TBS were upset with how long it took on the replay. I forget who said it but to paraphrase what he said: The game was a wonderfully played, fast paced game for 44 minutes and 57 seconds and then it came to a screeching halt for over five minutes." The one of the other "talking heads" said that replay needs a "shot clock", maybe 30 seconds. The shot clock comment made me laugh because I have an intense dislike for the shot clock in any level of game, but that is another story for another time.

Yes, I was rooting for Wisconsin (because it is a Big 10 team) but the replay was so inclusive as to who actually knocked the ball out of bounds that the official who made the call could have initially ruled that the ball was last touched by both players and gone to a Jump Ball/AP Throw-in, and replay would have showed that he was correct.

MTD, Sr.

I Make This Call Once, Or Twice, Every Season ...
 

That was my call initially, in real time, and after only one replay. Did those officials think that you really can't have a ball go out of bounds off of opposing players at the same time? Maybe it's in one of Isaac Newton's Laws, of one of Einstein's Theories? Something about no two things can really happen at the same exact time? One of those two players just had to touch the ball last, and damn if those officials weren't going to figure it out, come hell, or high water, no matter how long it took.

I never see many of these situations that I agree with when it comes to out of bounds plays.

This is why IR needs to be gotten rid of. If they cannot get these plays right with replay, why have it in the first place. And it is taking too long.

And baseball wants this crap? Good luck with that.

Peace

Agreed 100%.

This get the call right crap in the last two minutes is a farce. Same play happens at 2:01 and we play on. (as it should be)

Then again, Arizona had 5 minutes to come up with a play and they didn't get a shot off?

Per John Adams, the crew that worked the Duke v Butler Championship Game graded out at 75% accurate. When they blew their whistles, it was 90% correct; when they didn't blow their whistles, it was 50% correct.

It is the exact reason why John Adams began his crusade to get younger, more mobile officials in the games. They didn't blow their whiskers because they couldn't see the play. They couldn't see the play because hey were not in good position. They weren't in good positions because they couldn't move well enough....

Think about that!!! Only 75% correct I the biggest game of the year, by "supposedly" the best officials!!! Btw, officials working the NBA playoffs are a minimum of 95% correct for the season. I would guesstimate that HS officials are probably 50-60% correct.

Guess we don't need replay, huh?!

Will Real Steel Become Real ???
 

Coaches make poor decisions. Players make stupid plays. Officials make incorrect calls. And all three groups are always trying to improve, all the time. No matter how good they eventually get, they want to get better. It's been that way since the days of James Naismith, Abner Doubleday, and Mark T. DeNucci, Sr. Mistakes in the past haven't really hurt these sports, look how popular they have become, both nationally, and for basketball, internationally. Eventually we'll want to have games played by perfect robots, coached by perfect robots, and officiated by perfect robots, and we'll just forget about the human factor. It will be like the movie, Real Steel, but with basketball, and baseball, instead of boxing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...eel_Poster.jpg

The above post was from BillyMac, the sports purist. Now let's hear from BillyMac, the fan.

As long as my beloved Red Sox, and Celtics, don't get screwed, let's get rid of the replay.

I wish I never got an OOB call wrong but if it was that hard to get it write with replay then I wouldn't expect any ref to be 100% in real time. Of course, I can't think of a time in my career that I've ever made a mistake.:D

I felt the same way about replay in baseball.

I was a baseball umpire for a couple of years, and a non-certified official on various other sports too. It angered me to no end that people felt I, or my colleagues (most of which were better than me), needed a robot to help me do my job right. I also argued that the human factor was part of the game(s), and need not be taken out.

I was wrong.

Sports are not about the officials. We all know that, but some of us are not keeping that in mind when it comes to this issue. Officials are there to keep the game fair for those playing it. Inevitably, mistakes will be made, making the game less than fair. That's where replay comes in.. to help officials keep the game as fair as possible.

Don't think of replay as taking the place of you and I. Think of it as a tool for us to use to make the game as fair as possible.

If there is a problem with replay it's that people take too long with it. It doesn't take five minutes to determine if a call is right or wrong. Hell, we see numerous videos here under two minutes that definitively show the play in regular and slow motion. If you're still not sure at that point, then stick with the original call.

The only sad thing about replay is there will be officials that use it as a crutch, and therefore do not strive to be perfect, as they know the electronic eye will always bail them out. Thankfully, those officials will be kept down and away from things like the NCAA tournament, High School playoffs, and other "big" games.

I've met many official who have actually stated they will pick one or the other even when they think both got it or they couldn't tell who got it last in such a play. They, for some reason, think they calling a held ball is bad (their words, not mine).

It will be a cold day in hell before I'd call a "held ball" in that situation. The only thing that communicates to everyone (regardless of your mental processing) is, "I have no idea how the ball went out of bounds, so I'm going to make no decision." Our order of processing is to ask for a partner to give help and our partner(s) give us what they got. A shrug is not acceptable in that situation.

100% Positive ...
 

If I know, 100% for sure, that the ball went simultaneously off two opposing players, I will give the held ball signal. That's the rule. That probably happens once each season. If I'm unsure about who it went off of first, well, that's a completely different story, and I'm asking for help from my partner, and if my partner can't offer me help, then he comes up with the held ball signal. If I make a out of bounds decision, and if I really screwed the pooch, then my partner, if he had a better look than me, will be expected to come in and offer me help, which I have probably accepted 100% of the time over the years. That's the way we roll here in my little corner of Connecticut. That's the way that the "cadets" are trained. That's the way that the veterans handle it.

If my partner gives a held ball signal, he may need to find a ride home. :D

I can do it either way, and I've had partners pregame either way. No big deal to me.

And replay overturns the OOB call in the MSU/UConn game. Correctly. And it only took a couple minutes ;)

So, you'd rather them guess even if they were not even looking at the play?

I have called a "held" ball on my own line before when both were touching it simultaneously. I just don't see why that is such a bad thing if that is what happened.