I wanted to sleep on it before making this post.
Last night's game made me angry, not as a UConn fan, but as a basketball fan. I thought the Huskies played ok and ground out a decent, unremarkable win over an average Villanova team. The part that made me angry, and still has me angry the next day, was the absolutely horrible officiating. I don't think the officiating was particularly biased, it was just terrible. So terrible, that if I were the Big East I would not have those refs work a league game again until they prove they know the rules. They can call NEC or high school games if they want practice.
I think basketball is the greatest sport ever invented, but its Achilles Heel is officiating. Basketball is as dependent on good officiating as any sport, because, among other reasons, the officials can actually create scoring in basketball. Soccer is the only other major sport where that can happen. The officials make a dozen decisions every possession that impact the flow and often the outcome of the game. And when they are making consistently bad calls, they can make the game unwatchable, and at lower levels, unplayable. Last night was one of those games.
I do not advocate for officials letting them play or calling it tight. I simply want them to make the right call, and know the rules. When Villanova players are constantly flailing or fishing for fouls, the referees should either not call anything or call offensive fouls, because that is how the rules are written. Don't call some outdated foul off a flop during shooting when both the NBA and NCAA have specifically instructed officials not to reward players for doing that. Villanova, and to some extent UConn, were flopping all game. Hawkins got rewarding for flopping on a made 3, and then Villanova got a similar call about a minute later. Both calls were bad, and led to the players crashing to the ground after half the shots the rest of the way.
The refs should call 5 seconds closely guarded when Dixon takes 10 seconds backing a defender down to the paint from the 3 point line. The NCAA does not distinguish between back to the basket and facing up like the NBA does with the closely-guarded rule. On top of that, backing down, especially like Dixon was doing, is an offensive foul at every level of basketball, and the defender does not need to flop to get that call, despite the fact that the officials last night only called the offensive foul if the defender flopped. That is just lazy, stupid officiating.
Finally, call the freaking clear path foul like it is written. Officials make that call about 20% of the times they should make it. The point of that foul is so players will stop grabbing opponents on breakaways. If that foul is called correctly, there will be fewer free throws and more dunks. Who doesn't want that? Refs choke on this call all the time because they are afraid of giving a team 2 shots and the ball. Make the freaking call. Whitmore should have been called on one last night.
The NBA, NCAA and even high schools have implemented these adjustments and issued guidance over the last few years to make basketball more free-flowing, exciting, and fun. Yesterday's game was a 1990's rock fight. It was hard to watch, mostly because of the officials. If you want to know one reason why a free flowing, fun game like basketball does so much worse than football in the ratings, look at last night's game. Any casual fan that tried to watch that UConn/Villanova game would turn it off. It was just brutal. Compare that to the St. Johns/Xavier game which was much better officiated, and a lot more entertaining to the casual viewer even though Xavier was up 10+ points most of the game.
I never want to see that officiating crew again. They just suck.
