We decided early on at DBR that we wouldn't write much about officiating, and
we're not going to change our position on that now. But we have noticed a
lot of people were harshly critical of the officiating in the Duke-UConn game,
and we don't mind passing that on without editorial comment. Here are some
links.
- Officials
take away game everyone came to see - Referees make bad calls ruin game; re-seed at Final Four
-
The low down- Alabama finishes 20-13, advances to Elite Eight
(Scroll down) - G-Tech
will avenge Duke in the finals - Blowing
the whistle on shoddy NCAA officiating
- We also learned that one high-ranking ACC official privately questioned
the way that the officiating crews were split up for the first two Final
Four games, with the OSU-Georgia Tech game getting a crew with 27 Final Four
games under their belt, and the Duke-UConn game getting a crew with one
Final Four game. That doesn't necessarily mean that the
less-experienced crew isn't the better crew, but it does seem like an easy
thing to balance.
Incidentally, one of the officials, Ted Valentine, has received a lot of
criticism for his work in the Texas-Xavier game. If he in fact did tell
Brandon Mouton to "shut the **** up, man," he should be reprimanded,
and quickly. Certainly, if Mouton said the same thing to Valentine, he'd be
tossed. And not long after this foul was called, his coach, Rick Barnes,
was tossed, presumably for using similar language. Simple point: if a guy with
no whistle can't say it, the guy with the whistle shouldn't, either. By
the way, Ted Valentine, you may recall, is the guy who had the major blow-up
with Bob Knight a while back.
Here are some links about the Texas situation: