Opining on Officials

I started writing this post last night and, fortunately, came to a timely realization. Do not post when angry. And I did not. I gave myself a nice cooling off period after the Illinois-Missouri game last night and now I am back.

Officials rarely determine the outcome of a game, and they did NOT determine the outcome of the Illinois game last night. Illinois played poorly, and Mike Tisdale committed an extremely boneheaded foul at the end of the game. The refs, however, made a game altering call late in the game that was a correct call within the literal interpretation of the rule but that was the absolute wrong call given the situation surrounding the call. For those readers who did not watch the Illinois-Missouri game last night, Illinois made a three with around 48 seconds left to cut the Missouri lead to 62-61. Missouri pushed the ball down court and had a wide open layup. Illinois center, Mike Tisdale, gave Laurence Bowers of Missouri a soft, two handed shove while Bowers was in the air. Bowers made the layup and the refs called an intentional foul on Tisdale. Two free throws and Missouri gets the ball back. At the end of the sequence, Missouri led 68-61 and the game was essentially over.

Now, Mike Tisdale's foul definitely falls within the parameters of what constitutes an intentional foul. But an intentional foul, like any other foul in basketball is not black and white. The refs have discretion to NOT call an intentional foul there. In fact, historically, the refs in basketball swallow their whistles inside of a minute in a close game. They tend to err on the side of not calling a foul in order to let the players decide the game. No one would have complained if no intentional foul was called there given the severity of the actual foul and the status of the game when the foul was committed. If the refs do not take the drastic step of calling an intentional foul, Bowers is on the line shooting one free throw up 64-61 and Illinois still faces an uphill battle to win the game.

In my mind, there is a sliding scale late in the game. The more blatant the foul, the more brutal the foul, the more likely you are to make a call that influences the ultimate outcome. In this case, in a close game with 40 seconds left, a soft two handed shove does not rise to the level of severity necessary to make a game altering call.

Another recent example of this comes immediately to mind. Kansas vs. UCLA on December 2, at Kansas in a game tied at 76 with nine-tenths of a second left, the refs called a foul sending Mario Little of Kansas to the line with a chance to win the game. Little was 18 feet from the basket and not remotely in a scoring position when the foul was called. The foul boiled down to little more than a loose ball foul. There would have been little reason for a Kansas fan to complain if the ref had swallowed his whistle there. Little made 1 of the 2 free throws and the game was over. The NCAA defended the call in the ensuing backlash saying that it was, in fact, a foul. While that might have been a literal foul under the rules, it did not rise to the level of severity that a foul deciding the ultimate result of the game needs to rise to. Again, the refs have the discretion to not make a game changing call there.

In the NHL playoffs, when games head into overtime, there are very, very few penalties called that are not horribly blatant. The refs do not want to be the story, they want the players to decide the ultimate outcome.

I like to think that if I were a Kansas fan on December 2 or a Missouri fan last night, I would have been happy within the win, but I would recognize that the refs made a game changing call that they did not have to make.

Refs and officials have horribly difficult jobs, and it is easy to second guess with the benefit of hindsight. But loosen the whistles at the end of a close game and let the players decide the ultimate outcome.