Georgetown should be PO'd

[Gato78]

They lost, we won but the officiating tonight was a new low in the lowest season of NCAA officiating I can remember. Perhaps the officials are like Al's teams---they reflect the personality of their leader, John Cahil--incompetent (and he ran like a girl). They were awful all game long--made it a real long game, fouled out all of the Georgetown big men and called a ridiculous T on Jake. There is no excuse. They would be better off pushing up high level high school officials.

[IrwinFletcher]

This is now 2 of the last 3 games (both at home) where the officiating was just plain horrible. Between the ticky tack fouls here, then not calling them later and both T's were just plain silly. How Buzz and JTIII didn't get tossed is simply beyond me.

The League really needs to take a look at this.

[Goose85]

Jake's T was a joke. Buzz said play was walked through yesterday based on advanced scouting. Then again today. When Jake hit the shot he turned to the assistant that drew it up and said "it worked" and pointed to the coach. Buzz explained it to the ref at the next break.

[BLT]

Simply unwatchable. A total of 51 fouls with 64 free throws taken. They extended the game by at least a half hour. No wonder those coming up from Chicago or up North don't bother with the weeknight commute. That is a lot of dead space. At this rate, NCAA basketball will become the roller derby with no fans live at the event, but everyone watching at home. The two technicals were over the top.

[CaribouJim]

Simply unwatchable. A total of 51 fouls with 64 free throws taken. They extended the game by at least a half hour. No wonder those coming up from Chicago or up North don't bother with the weeknight commute. That is a lot of dead space. At this rate, NCAA basketball will become the roller derby with no fans live at the event, but everyone watching at home. The two technicals were over the top.

I just got back to Chicago about 20 minutes ago with a slight diversion to Real Chili.

The Creighton and G-Town games were two of the worst officiated games I've ever seen. Beyond disgusting. What was it, 8 fouls in the first 3 minutes of the game?

[farmerdoc]

Part of the problem, is that the subjective part of officiating has never been larger than it is today. Also, most aggressive teams have learned to play defense from the old Huggins Cincy teams. It is almost like daring officials that they can't call them all.

I feel like the offense is given too much deference in the game as well.

But, if the goal is to decrease the physical nature of the college game, more crews need to call games like this, so teams will adjust and play a less physical style.

[TheSultan]

I don't ever want to see a college game called like that again. They weren't just trying to prevent a physical style of basketball, they were calling just ridiculous touch fouls. After the under 12:00 timeout in the second half, they called four fouls in about 45 seconds. (And I believe both teams were already in the bonus, if not the double bonus, by that point.)

If the NCAA thought that this would improve the product, they were wrong. There is not a chance I watch that game unless I have a rooting interest in either team.

[pbiflyer]

I am not sure that we got the better end of the deal. There were some calls, like when Todd got the ball blocked and they called out of bounds off him. It was clearly off the GT player. But yeah, it was a horribly officiated game that had an impact on the outcome. I am really surprised that they didn't call a foul at the end of the game. I know it was clean, but still it looked like something they would call.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

It was awfully officiated both ways, but I feel GT got the worst of it. Their three bigs had 14 fouls and couldn't look at Davante funny without a whistle. The technical on them was an absolute joke. Yes, it was a bad call on Jake as well, but a phantom makeup technical?

I'm not sure I'd say the refs were the reason they lost because they were bad on both sides, but if I were a GT fan watching that I'd feel pretty irritated. Just a brutally officiated game.

[MayorBeluga]

There's a reason Gato and Hizzoner regularly text when we see who is officiating the game. The refs matter. Mike Stephens is just brutal. I used to think Corbitt was OK, but maybe that was just compared to Tim Higgins. There was no reason for Corbitt to T up Jake. None whatsoever. Then Jamie Luckie awards a makeup T? OK, we like the fact it evened out but it never should have come to it. Strangest thing is that Stephens did not call either T and that Pat "Double T" Driscoll was not in the house. Regardless, just painful. Watching other Big East games has only served to reinforce my view - the refs this year in the Big East are truly awful. Both teams got screwed last night and both have valid reasons to bitch.

I'd like to think that the Big East head of officials, John "I used to run like a girl" Cahill is going to fix it, but I'm not holding my breath.