Are a Zebra's Stripes Black or White?

This year has been particularly bad for referees in the NCAA. (Does anybody remember the Georgetown game?) Now, of course, referees that are incredibly good at their craft do exist, while some, shall we say, fall a little short. But that's OK, because only the best crews, or at least the best officials, will be chosen for the NCAA tournament, right?

Now granted, that query was rhetorical, but perhaps it needed to be answered in the affirmative, since that could attempt to make us all feel better about this tournament and perhaps make us forget about what we have been seeing these last couple of weekends. It goes back to the old adage, "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes". And our eyes seem to be more trustworthy than the men in the striped shirts this year.

Now it would be too easy to go to the UCLA - Texas A & M finish, as that was simply a missed call. Period. If you don't know what I am writing about, then you didn't see the game.

However, the problem goes much deeper than missed calls or referees that swallow their whistles at the end of games. Some referees are simply influencing the entire tempo and feel of the game. Take last night's Louisville - Tennessee game for example. Both teams guard tough, get up-and-down the court at breakneck speed and rely on athleticism to force teams into shaky passes, bad decisions and tentative play which can all lead to easy baskets. A game that everyone knows is going to be frantic and involve a little bit of tough play both on and off the ball. The game starts and next thing you know, Wayne Chism has 2 fouls a few minutes in. He goes to the bench for (what we thought would be) the rest of the half. More importantly, Tennessee not only loses an athletic inside player and defensive presence, but they also lose their aggressiveness. This occurred especially since a couple of the early fouls were dubious at best. In the second half, Louisville had two plays, at least one by Earl Clark, where great passing led to an inevitable dunk. A Tennessee defender was in the area during each of these plays, but not close enough to make a defensive stop. Each time the defender backed off so as not to incur a foul and give Louisville a three point play, only to actually be called with the ever present "anticipation foul" by the official.

Now, I am not saying that Louisville didn't deserve to win, or that Tennessee was robbed, since Louisville certainly took the play to Tennessee the entire game. I am just saying that the officials did not let the athletic match up develop that I, like most of America, was expecting.

Another example is how Roy Hibbert fouled out of Georgetown's second round game against Davidson, with 3 offensive fouls. This even though Hibbert is not your typical drive to the rim at all costs guard who becomes prone to charging defenders.

Another weird play occurred in the UCLA - Western Kentucky game last night. Western Kentucky was in the middle of its second half run when Courtney Lee took the ball on the left wing and drove into the left elbow when he inexplicably stopped. Realizing he was about to travel, he lofted a floater toward the half court line for Tyrone Brazelton, which was intercepted by Darren Collison and taken the other way for two easy points. Why did Lee, who had a tremendous tournament by the way, just suddenly stop for no reason, leading to a turnover. The answer was right before our ears. Someone in that stadium blew a whistle. I heard it through the television, and lest it just be that whomever blew their whistle was close to a crowd mic, the announcers heard it and even commented on the whistle. Nothing from the officials. Nothing whatsoever.

This tournament is replete with call after call after non-call that are affecting teams, their style of play and the ending of the games themselves.

As we wind down to 8, then eventually 4 and 2 very good teams, most of which are going to be fairly evenly matched with a lot of athletes, the NCAA needs to insure that the games are decided by those athletes, and not by the less athletic threesome on the court in stripes.