What's That You Say, Bad Officiating in The Elite Eight? No Way

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

The officials are at it again.

This time, it couldn't have happened at the worst possible time. Three missed calls in the last four and a half minutes in a game is in excusable.

Let me repeat: three missed calls in the last three minutes is inexcusable and quite possibly is what changed the whole outcome of the game.

The first non-call was on a fast break run by the Connecticut Huskies where Hasheem Thabeet caught the ball, put it on the floor, and went up for a layup where he was fouled by Leo Lions, which got him his fourth foul.

Wait a minute, though, what did Thabeet do before he put the ball on the floor?

He shuffled his feet—this is why a point guard should be never passing to a 7'3" center on a fast break that they don't have the ability to put the ball on the floor before shuffling their feet. Unfortunately, for the Missouri Tigers, that was a huge non-call.

Thabeet walked before he was fouled. The basket should not have counted.

At the time of the call, Missouri was trailing by four. Yet, with the non-call, it took the lead for the Huskies up to six.

On the next Connecticut possession, a jumper is missed and goes onto the opposite side of the court where Stanely Robinson tips it away from a Tigers rebounder, gets the rebound, and goes up for a shot. The shot is cleanly blocked, and Robinson wasn't even close to being touched by a Tiger defender.

Again, what was the ref's call? A foul on the Tigers, and Robinson hit both free throws, bringing the lead up to eight.

A few minutes later, the commentators for CBS noticed that Thabeet was in the lane for an eternity. Wasn't there a rule about players standing in the key? Not a good time for the officials to ignore the three-second violations, was it?

In the end, Connecticut wins 82-75, but the Huskies should be shaking hands with the refs and thanking them for this victory, because the officials went to sleep in the closing minutes of the game.

In the Villanova vs Pittsburgh game there was only one pathetic call by an official. It's also too bad it occured with in the final minutes of the game.

Maybe it's because they didn't want to feel like they were dictating the game or call the fourth foul on an important player for Villanova in Dwayne Anders.

Whatever it was they should have blown the whistle. Yet, they let the play go on it was an off center pass from Levance Fields. Dejuan Blair was able to catch it but not cleanly and ended up travelling.

If the official was actually paying attention he would have immediately called a foul and not a travel. The reason during the play before the pass was thrown Anderson had Blair in a bear hug. Last time I checked that was a foul.

The NCAA in the offseason has some very hard work to do because if the officials are going to be this bad they shouldn't even bother playing these games.  

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