Big East Refs Blow…. II: This Time is for Real

So the Big East refs have literally blown several games this season, twice giving games to Georgetown and twice screwing West Virginia and Bob Huggins who looks like his head is constantly just about to explode nowadays.

(And this is following a “stellar” season of football officiating for the Big East… Uconn scores on phantom fair catch no-call anyone?)

The problem is, these aren’t difficult calls they are missing. These are easy calls and/or they are making inconceivable calls that shouldn’t have even been considered, let alone acted upon, in the first place.

1) WVU gets jobbed after Ewing “blocks” the last second shot by Da’sean Butler and it’s clearly goaltending but the refs hesitate and then decide not to make the call. Instead they run off the court as Huggins desperately tries to chase them down. Although it was a tough call to make (and can’t be reviewed after the fact) the review showed that the ball was CLEARLY on it’s way down, and it’s a play refs should be able to call even in a tough situation like that. I might be able to concede not intervening on the final play if this were a Hoya homegame but to make that call at WVU is a smack in the face. Worst of all you can see from the pic that the ref's in perfect position to make the right call: right underneath the basket!

IMHO, if it comes down to that game deciding whether the Mountaineers make the tourney the committee should consider this game a win. It probably would have been the signature win that a bubble team like them will need to make it at large.

2) WVU again get’s massively screwed when the refs decide that a shooter who already made both his free throws wasn’t the one who was fouled. From the AP:

“When the Mountaineers finally made two free throws, by Alexander with slightly more than 4 minutes remaining, they were wiped off -- the officials reviewed the game tape and decided Cam Thoroughman should have been on the line instead. He went to the line and missed the front end of the 1-and-1.

"I've never been involved in anything like that," Huggins said.

The Pirates went on to win the game by one point on a last second Ronald Ramon 3. Now this is less a clear cut screwing because who knows how those 2 points would have changed the game in the course of events. But the call itself is retarded. How can you possibly take the points back after the free throws have already been shot? To make matters worse, both players were fouled on the play (from what I can see) so instead of correcting an obvious mistake the refs took away points because the changed their minds on a judgement call.

Now listen, I would be the first to advocate for a more complete system of challenges and reviews in basketball (I even think coaches should be given a couple challenges to keep at the ready in cases where a big foul call drastically changes the course of a game). But taking away points already earned because the refs reviewed the tape and decided the other guy might have been fouled a split-second earlier is idiotic and should not be part of review. If they can’t review a goaltending call after the fact, they sure as hell shouldn’t be able to change foul shooters in highly subjective foul situation.

3) which brings us to tonight’s grand finale of terrible Big East calls. And this one, by far, takes the cake. Basically, the refs GAVE Georgetown another win by calling a phantom foul (one that would have been questionable even in the middle of the game) with .1 seconds left. The call was made (get this) 80+ ft. from the basket.

Obviously, with that little time on the clock, even if the tiny hip bump did send the player out of bounds, no advantage is gained or lost by being bumped with so little time left. Georgetown’s John Wallace, who sunk both free throws to win the game, wouldn’t have gotten a shot off anyway. Nor could Villanova if given the ball out of bounds gotten a shot off. The game should have goe to overtime, period.

What made the call even worse, was that Scottie Reynolds took more contact, himself, on his way to the rim on the possession which led to the final call and received no such ticky-tack game changing foul call. Obviously, Jay Wright was incensed and just stood there slack-jawed staring at the ref, motioning from the Reynolds no call to the Wallace foul and back again. Perhaps, even an even more defining image though was John Thompson III slightly shaking his head as he approached to shake hands as if to say: “Sorry, you really got screwed there.”

This one doesn’t require any further debate. It was plainly a bad call. All the announcers agreed. The question is why was it allowed to happen. Yes, the ref should have swallowed his whistle but can’t the other refs come in after the fact and correct him. Can’t they at least determine that the game clock expired b4 the foul. Call it an inadvertent whistle, give G-Town the ball out of bounds with .1, who cares but don’t throw the entire game away because a ref made an awful split-second decision in the heat of the moment. This is the kind of play where a coaches challenge (2-3 per game tops, bad challenges cost a timeout) on important foul calls could be helpful. Just bc it’s a subjective call doesn’t mean that there isn’t a right and a wrong call (same thing with Pass Interference in football which will hopefully be changed next season).

For the time being somebody in the Big East should apologize to Villanova and maybe Bob Huggins while they’re at it. Nobody’s face should get that red… not even Bobby Knight’s.

Big East Refs Blow... ok, you're right, I have to write about the Superbowl

Ok, so it’s been awhile since I’ve written (or rather bitched) about something here. Ha, I just thought of the Family Guy where Peter gets his own Local News segment called “you know what grinds my gears”… yeah I’m THAT asshole.

Anyway, you know what really grinds my gears… hahaha…. but really…

I guess it’s ironic that I would come back to write here only after some extremely minor issue like Big East refereeing when I could have returned for something as massively important and euphoric as my experience watching the Giants upset the Pats in what may be the greatest Superbowl I’ve ever seen (Tennessee/St. Louis where the titans fell 1 yd short is close, and the Niners beating the Bengals on Montana’s magical last minute drive may have been better but I was 5 so, even if it helped ultimately shape my deep subconscious love for football, it’s hard to pick over this year’s ultimate upset) and yet considering the contents of my previous post it’s probably fitting that I select such minutia to focus on. And in case you’re wondering why a die hard Eagles fan was rooting for the Giants I give you two reasons:

1) I naturally root for underdogs but the intense pleasure I’ve taken in rooting against the Pats this season is best exemplified by this ingenious article from The Onion. (it’s an interesting experience to, for once, realize that the it’s-funny-because-it’s-pathetically-true aspect of an Onion article applies directly to you).

2) I’ve been rooting for the Giants since they beat Jeff Garcia and the Bucs (Garcia will forever be an honorary Eagle in my mind) because there is something about this Giants team (esp. its defense) that is so reminiscent of my birds. It’s something about their sort of “fuck you” attitude, and absolute need to win at all costs. For a team like this there are no moral victories. For a team like this sometimes defeats can be totally and utterly personally destructive. I’m thinking of losses like that of the Ravens to the pats this season on a badly called 4^th-and-1 timeout by a Raven’s defensive coordinator, and the terrible holding call on 4^th down in the final minute and then the refs not overturning Jabar Gafney’s obviously bobbled catch, which led to Bart Scott throwing the flag from the ensuing unsportsmanlike penalty into the stands and the Pats kicked off from the Baltimore 40. Awful to watch, but fucking classic nonetheless.

I’ve had the same feeling about this Giants team ever since that 2003 improbable Wildcard loss 39-38 to the Niners when several fights broke out, and bad calls and missed opportunities screwed the Giants out of a Divisional playoff game. That night as I watched the Giants defense storm off the field, slamming helmets and kicking over shit like their jersey’s said Nowitzki on the back (the refs making another terrible call on the final play had long since scuttled off), I imagined what Jim Fassell might say in that locker room. Maybe he didn’t say anything, maybe there is no possible way to positively spin a loss so devastating and soul-crushing as that. But I wanted to imagine Fassell (an underdog to the core, himself, who would get fired very shortly after) looking all those guys in the face and saying… ‘we got screwed tonight, but what really matters is that we fought with everything we had… and people will say we committed stupid penalties and lost our heads but the reality is we left everything on the field and played like football players are supposed to play. And if we get to keep this team together next year we’ll come back and win it, because you guys want it more than any other team in the league.

There is a certain edge to this year’s Giants team (and to each Giant squad since 2003 for that matter) that clearly brings me back to that game. I’m sure Michael Strahan and other defensive vets haven’t forgotten that feeling walking off the field at candlestick. And they play with the same fleeting desperation at times. The kind of desperation it takes to will themselves past the league’s best offensive line over and over again to repeatedly put Brady on his ass. The kind of desperation it takes for David Tyree, who had more tackles than catches this year, to trap that catch on his helmet despite Rodney Harrison scratching and clawing to pull down his arms. Many of the names changed for the Giants after that 2003 loss—Fassell was replaced by the similarly underdoggy Tom Coughlin, the team wisely benched Kerry Collins in favor of rookie Eli Manning and suffered thru a rebuilding season… but the desperate essence of the 2002-03 club somehow remained.

And so it was a strange feeling as the euphoria settled into a deep and profound contentment as I looked into the bathroom mirror half drunk that Sunday night. And I was initially at a loss as to why this felt SO GOOD. And then it sunk in…

I’ve never seen the Eagles win the Superbowl, and if/when they eventually do it will undoubtedly be one of the better moments in my lifetime. But after this year’s superbowl I got a strange glimpse of what it will feel like when they do. And no, I’m not saying I’m now a Giants fan, that would be ridiculous, but the experience definitely solidified why 12 out of the 16 weeks of the season I tend not to root as vehemently against division rivals Washington and NY as perhaps I would be expected to. Because there is some deep unexplainable connection between those NFC east teams: their fans, the desperate way they play, and the palpable, almost foreboding, importance of needing to will themselves to victory at all cost. (And no I don’t include the Dallas Cowboys in this NFC East comradery… are you fucking kidding me?!).

Anyway, I’ll write another post about the fucking Big East officials, but for now allow me, in my semi-triumphant return, to wax poetic on a great game and an extremely satisfying moment.

Ps. If you’ve read my previous post you now know that I was wrong about this NFL season being a parity-less dud. While I was EXACTLY (If I could use double caps on this I would) correct on my playoff predictions in WEEK 7 (yeah it’s retarded I know), I was very incorrect in saying the season was inconsequential until a seeming AFC championship rematch b/t the Pats and Colts which would determine the eventual SB champ. Of course SD and NY would have something to say about that prediction and, of course, despite being more void of parity (and full of bad to fairly bad teams) than it has been in many years… the NFL (esp. the playoffs) still managed to become indescribably entertaining in the end, thanks mostly to the G-men.