NCAA Tournament: Are Officials Calling Games the Right Way?

With the postseason already upon us in college basketball, and with the NBA postseason only a few weeks away, the officials of these games become more noticeable. It seems 50 percent of SportsCenter is devoted to discussing the apparent miscues of the officials in the NCAA tournament.

After the first three rounds, the head of NCAA officials seems to have his statement memorized better than Luca Brasi when he went to congratulate Don Corleone in The Godfather.

I am not here to discuss each individual case this past weekend because, there were a lot of crazy endings to games, and for the most part the officials got the calls right.

So I will talk in a more general topic of interest. 

The question is, should the officials change the way they call at the end of the game?

First, let’s think about who is involved in the game.

There are four parts to every game. The most important part is the players, obviously.  Second is the coaches, third are the officials and last are the fans watching the games.

At the end of the game, players change the way the play. Coaches change the way they coach. And fans even change the way they cheer/pay attention to the game.

So why would the officials not change the way they officiate at the end of games?

Second, when officials decide on what is or is not a foul is during the beginning of the game. This is why you hear referees call it tight early to set the tone. Once you start calling it close early, you then get a feel on how the players need you to call the game.

There is a line in the sand, and if a player crosses that line then there is a foul. Players determine how far away that line is from the base of the game. That base is laid by the situation of the game you are refereeing. A preseason game’s base is different than an NCAA tournament game base.

Now, the question is, can that base change throughout the game?

Yes.

Like I said earlier, the players, coaches, and fans change at the end of the game. Because of that, the base of the game changes, therefore, the line changes with the base. Officials have to recognize when the game changes and then adjust to what is a foul.

At the end of the game officials do not swallow their whistles, they simply call the game the way it needs to be officiated.

Officials you see on TV have spent thousands of dollars and a lot of vacation days to go to camps and referee for free to learn how to officiate better and perform at a high level. They have spent hundreds of hours discussing how to officiate close end of game scenarios, and then refereed hundred of said close games prior to these games as well.

These officials know what they are doing.

We need to keep that in mind next time we question the philosophy of how to referee a game about a referee who has more experience than you realize.