Open Mic: College Basketball Officials Are Awful!

Officiating is quintessential in sports and is the main topic of discussion of every game, whether the game is important or not. In light of the Tim Donaghy Scandal and the disdain I have for Dan Crawford, I will lay off the bumbling NBA officials.

The worst officiating in sports has to reside in the world of men’s college basketball. Though I love college basketball with a passion, the officials are so inconsistent and biased that it seems like some teams are playing 5-on-8.

The college game is already enough of a crapshoot, with its star players only staying for one season and a three-point line that 10-year-olds can stroke at least 40% of the time. Those two observations make upsets more likely to happen in addition to the mix referees that either call any contact between players or wait until a player draws blood to blow the whistle.

The best examples I can think of are during the NCAA tournament, and any games at Cameron Indoor Stadium, home of the most annoying team in college basketball—Duke.

In the NCAA tournament, a referee always fails to land a star player in foul trouble early in the first half of an intriguing game. The calls either lean towards the home team in the regular season, or the underdog in the tournament games.

The Blue Devils get every call on every possession at Cameron Indoor, including those infamous charge calls that Shane Battier and J.J. Redick made a career on. The refs cater excessively to Mike Krzyzewski and psycho Cameron Crazies.

This year’s casualty of awful, incompetent officiating in the NCAA was Georgetown's center Roy Hibbert. In the game against the heavy underdog Davidson, Hibbert only played five minutes in the first half and wasn't a threat after being called for two cheap fouls early in the game. Davidson won that match, and nearly beat the national champions-to-be, Kansas.

Some changes that need to be made for the improvement of the college game are that the top NBA officials need to train the NCAA officials, conference affiliations with officials should be eliminated, and better communication between coaches and officials should be established.

The top NBA officials can train the NCAA referees on making consistent calls over the course of a game and on the mental toughness needed to make the right call, no matter how unpopular.

Officials no longer need to be affiliated with conferences because of the inconsistencies of calls in the NCAA tournament.

The physical style of play in the Big East and Big 10 is too different from the free-flowing styles of the ACC and the Pac-10. The officials need to communicate more with the coaches to reduce the angst that comes from certain calls made by referees.

Despite my bashing of college basketball referees, basketball is the toughest sport to officiate because of the speed at which the action takes place in multiple instances. The referees are also contending with the same hostile, profanity-laced environments as the visiting team and the abuse that comes along with the territory.

Basketball is the sport where officials play the greatest role in the outcome of games. As Tim Donaghy proved, one official can determine the outcome of a game without the assistance of the other officials. A certain ref can eject a player or coach from the game without explaining themselves and no appeal. The referees can render one player a non-factor by calling fouls on that player or calling infractions like palming or traveling.

Ted Valentine would have to be the best official that I have seen. I do not really follow officials in college because there are so many, but Valentine’s name sticks because he is an ACC official and I do live in Atlanta (ACC Country).