Arizona received a double overtime thriller for its 101st birthday Friday night between in-state rivals No. 4 Arizona and ASU ending in controversy and the Wildcats’ second loss of the season.
In the last minute of regulation, Arizona’s T.J. McConnell drove into the middle of the key and floated up a lay-up that was rejected by Jordan Bachynski. ASU point guard Jahii Carson got the loose ball and dunked it giving ASU a three point lead with 0.5 seconds left in 2OT.
ASU rushed the court like they won their first game all season, while many others were waiting for the referees to call a double technical foul on ASU.
One for Carson hanging on the rim after his dunk and taunting the fans. The other for ASU prematurely rushing the court while their was still time on the clock. Instead the referees didn’t even play out the 0.5 seconds and called the game, 69-66.
Now even the refs have admitted that it was a bad call. From ESPN:
A Pac-12 conference official told ESPN.com Sunday night that the officials handed in their standard review of the game and conceded that a call should have made on the play. The conference official said coordinator of officials Bobby Dibler asks for a review of each game and the results of the report came from standard operating procedure.
At least until Wednesday’s game against Utah, Wildcat fans are left wondering what if.
This article appears in Feb 13-19, 2014.
have You eVeR refed a Bball game?
umpired a Baseball game?
Referred a football game??
it’s not ez…
way to cry like a baby. You got beat and you want to bitch about celebrating. Grow up.
Whose crying? The ref making the bad call?
I know I don’t get paid for making mistakes at work.
This post is a bit confused.
Actually, the refs did NOT call the game after Carson’s dunk. The homer timekeeper attempted to run out the last half-second, but the refs did the right thing in clearing the court, looking at the monitor, and putting 0.7 seconds back on the clock, which gave the Wildcats just enough time to miss an excruciatingly close buzzer-beater that would have tied it and sent it to a third OT.
Also, obviously Carson was not “taunting the fans’, since they were his own home town fans. He was just childishly celebrating a victory that was not yet a victory. (He should have just dribbled out the clock and the game would have been over.) By rule, he should indeed have been called for a technical, but it would not necessarily have changed the outcome. Arizona would have still had to hit a buzzer-beater to win, although they may well have gotten a much better shot, since they would have been inbounding in the half court after the technical free throws rather than full court.