Fire the SEC Basketball Refs

[rtftiger 40]

The conference should be totally embarrassed by the performance of their officiating crews throughout the SEC tournament. The final two minutes of the championship game included the worst officiating and game management that one could imagine. Think about how many different things that an officiating crew could get wrong. Add in some things that you could not imagine them getting wrong (like counting). And you have the final minutes of the most important game in the SEC.

It would be one thing if the pressure of the moment got to them. However, the truth is that the officiating was poor throughout the tournament.

We (excluding LSU fans) have no reason to believe that the officiating favored one team over another. But the mismanagement, indecisiveness, and down-right poor foul calling affects the game.

The SEC championship game was an opportunity to highlight either the best team in the league or an upstart who had to beat the best two teams in the league to make it to the dance. Instead, it turned into a travesty of errors and marred the Bulldogs celebration.

Meanwhile, the rest of the nation had no compelling reason to believe that the SEC was any better than they thought we were.

[WarTiger 3,910]

The only thing I had a problem with was the 5 second count at the end. He only counted to about 4 1/2 and blew the whistle. The player was asking for timeout at the same time. I thought that looked pretty bad. As an official, in that situation, we are taught to give them the FULL 5 seconds to inbounds the ball. Meaning, we usually count to 5 1/2 before the whistle is blown.

The foul vs. the travel. That was easy. One official had a travel, one had a foul. The one with the travel was only looking at his feet and based on the zones of coverage they have in that situation, it wasn't his call to begin with. The one with the foul, saw that the foul prevented the MSU player from putting the ball on the floor for a dribble, thus causing the travel. I think they got that one right.

The clock issue was ridiculous. That should NEVER happen at this stage, unless there is a hardware malfunction. The clock operator simply didn't start the clock TWICE in the last 10 seconds. Inexcusable. But, that's not on the officials. It makes them look bad, but its not their fault. They went to the table and reviewed it and got it right.

[AU alum 2]

The officials on the floor made some horrendous calls, too. Some blatant fouls were not called, some were called wrong - they were awful. Worse than the SEC football officials. I can't believe I just said that!