Xavier shafted by timekeeper, officials

Every week in sports seems to provide some type of controversy.  For the most part, referees and umpires do a great job.  They get 98 percent of all calls right, yet fans love to harass them for everything they think the men (and women) in stripes get wrong.  Truth is, referees and umpires do a far better job than anyone complaining about them could ever do.  This is why I never argue with officials, and why I hate those who do.  Coaches, players and fans who yell at the refs look like idiots.  And yes, they are usually always wrong, yet the argue anyway.

However, there are select few instances when a blown call cannot be ignored.  One such occurence happened over the weekend in a very important game between Butler and Xavier.  If you missed it, you can check out the final six minutes by viewing the video below.

A judgment call, such as a foul or who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds, should never be argued by coaches or players.  It’s a judgment call that the refs saw a certain way.  But there are other calls, such as a shot clock violation or 10 second violation, that the referees should never miss because they have the help of an automated clock.

Butler, down by a point, tracked down a loose ball in the backcourt.  The clock operator, thinking it may be a backcourt call, stopped the clock with 14.7 seconds left, then restarted it after realizing that the whistle didn’t blow.  First of all, that person should be fired for causing this whole drama in the first place.  You have one job – start the clock on the official’s signal and stop it on a whistle.  You don’t even need a high school education to do that, just a set of ears and eyes.

Anyway, that pause allowed Butler extra time to dribble back the other way and set the stage for a dramatic finish that saw Willie Veasley rebound his own miss and set up Matt Howard for a layup with 1.2 seconds left.  It was only after the layup did the clock operator point out the “malfunction.”  The referees went back and reviewed it, and somehow determined that the clock had stopped for 1.2-1.7 seconds.  How they came to that conclusion I have no idea, but Xavier got shafted.

I’m trying to figure this out, and I simply cannot.  Before I proceed with my logic, I beg you to ignore Bob Knight’s analysis of the situation in the video.  He is absolutely clueless.  Not only is he the worst color commentator in college basketball history, but he obviously has no sense of time.  He said the clock stopped for “a fraction of a second.”  Not even close actually.  The clock stopped for at least one second, but probably closer to two.

The referees determined that it had stopped long enough not to reward Xavier with any extra time, yet not long enough to disallow Howard’s shot.  That’s a pretty tight window considering it took only .5 seconds for him to release the ball and make it.

The more I watch it, the more I think Howard’s shot would not have counted.  But if the refs had made that ruling, there would have been a bigger uproar.  Veasley would have argued that he would have shot the ball off the rebound if he had known there was less time than what the clock showed.  Although, that play should have never happened because Veasley actually should have been called for traveling before the pass to Howard.  His right knee was on the floor when he gained possession of the ball, and he picked it up before the pass.  Again, that’s a judgment call, so I won’t complain.

But I will complain about the officials denying Xavier an opportunity to win the game.  When you’re a mid-major school, you only have so many opportunities to prove yourself out of conference.  Xavier’s loss to Butler means more than Ohio State’s loss to Butler because unlike the Musketeers, the Buckeyes play a bundle of NCAA tournament teams in January and February.

So why even review that play?  I wonder how many games decided by one possession there have been in NCAA history that have included a clock error.  Come to think of it, I think the clock stopped for a second or two early in the first half of Kansas’ victory over Memphis for the championship in 2008.  How unjust would it have been to go back and review that, and decide to take away Mario Chalmers’ game tying three as a result?  Okay, so there was no clock error in that game, but you see my point right?

Nobody from Butler would have complained if the refs decided not to review it because nobody even noticed that it happened.  I didn’t.  You didn’t when you watched it in real-time.

But Xavier sure noticed when they found out they were beat by the buzzer…and the referees.

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