Disgraceful Officiating in Huge Moment for NCAA
Ok, so, I just had to post about this because I think it showcases how the NCAA's problems with officiating is systemic and even extends to women's sports. But, in case you missed it, LSU just beat Iowa in the women's national championship game in what was a highly anticipated matchup. However, it was a contest marred by incompetent officiating and it basically became the story of the game.
It's such a shame because it was an absolutely colossal moment/showcase for the sport as it was expected to draw one of its biggest audiences ever. I'm not sure what the ratings will be, but I know a TON of people who are not women's basketball fans who tuned in. And literally every one of them thought the officiating was downright horrible and it had a major impact on the game, particularly Iowa's star players.
The officiating was definitely not great both ways; LSU freaked out when Angel Reese got whistled for her 2nd foul in what appeared to be a clean swipe at the ball (that's OK because Reese probably could've been whistled for like 12 fouls in this game). But, LSU seemed to get away with a ton of stuff that Iowa did not. And the incompetence tended to favor LSU.
Iowa's center Monika Czinano fouled out with 6+ minutes left despite spending most of the game on the bench. She got whistled for her 3rd foul when Reese rammed her shoulder into her face. And then after her 4th (we never got replays of her 4th or 5th fouls) they gave Caitlin Clark a technical for tossing the ball out of bounds and supposedly saying something. Replays show she didn't say anything. That sent them both to bench in the 3rd right when Iowa had made a great run to cut it to single digits. The juice was returning to the game at that point but that basically ended Iowa's chances.
I mean, I was rooting hard for Iowa, but I really think the officiating ruined the game. That will be the takeaway from this game; not the fact that it was a major moment for women's sports and a chance for the country to see a phenomenal and generational talent, someone who could be a major star and draw for the women's game. But we got a ref show.
Shame on the NCAA. Hopefully they'll do something about it and get full-time refs in here. But we know they won't.
The issue is this was a bit of a showcase for the women's game and it ended up being a low quality, foul filled, stars sitting low drama game.
Blame the refs or whoever but the opportunity was lost.
I thought it was a great game. Bombs were flying from both sides. Nearly 190 points scored. Loved it.
Amen. It was a typically officiated women's basketball game with teams with two distinct styles--very inconsistent.
Iowa's defense is bad because they don't have the athletes to match up. They have the best player in the country (by a country mile), a really good player in Czinano, and then the local rec league crew. It's been bad all year.
There was a play where Clark threw a pass downcourt and it was just a bit high and the girl just couldn't get it, she tried to save it, and clumsily ended up out of bounds. That play is a microcosm of Iowa. It's a layup throwing that to anyone on South Carolina.
Don't really agree with this either. They're a pretty athletic team, but definitely different skills are prioritized by Iowa. She wants shooters around Clark and Czinano. Which is what they've got.
Yea no. Don't agree with much of this. LSU clearly had shooters and players to go win. The way this game went was hugely tilted towards LSU play. They get to physical because "style" and don't get called for sooooo fucking much and Mulkey does a disco dance whenever they did get called for their shit and people pretend like it was some evenly called game. It just wasn't.
I'm sorry what? She and Iowa were talking tons of shit?
Listen, this game had 37 foul calls - including 14 on Iowa's 3 best players. I found out later that 37 FOULS IS THE MOST FOULS EVER CALLED IN A WOMEN'S NCAA TOURNAMENT GAME - NOT JUST CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES - THAT'S ALL TOURNAMENT GAMES EVER. That is the very definition of a ref show.
IOwa got a lot of calls too and I threw my hands up a few times when they blew a play dead for touch fouls on LSU. But the poor officiating definitely seemed to hurt Iowa more.
There is no doubt that technical - which really did not have to be called especially at that point in the game and on that big of a stage - had a material impact on the game. Aren't you the least bit curious how the rest of the second half would've played out had they just not made an issue of it?
And Mulkey was in the refs' ears all game Bobby Knight-style. And she was on the court all game Izzo-style. She even bumped into the ref who had to physically move her out of the way. I always thought that was an auto-technical, but not for Kim Mulkey.
I also thought it was a bad look that Reese was walking around the court making taunting gestures at Clark before the game was over. That sure seemed like grounds for a tech as well. Extremely unsportsmanlike. And then she did it again a few minutes later. Why not? Wasn't discouraged from doing it at all the first time.
The officiating was an abomination on the sport's biggest day and I rest my case.
Actually, there were more fouls called in literally the prior NCAAW tourney game (S. Car/Iowa).
We get it… some of you have a crush on Caitlin Clark (🤢).
You’d think she was the new Kate Upton the way this board’s been posting the last 24 hours.
Eh, I don't think that's it, chief.
Enormously poor take, friend. She’s one of the top handful of WBB players in the last 20 years and is a hell of a lot of fun to watch play.
Watched the whole game. Absolutely horrendous officiating that definitely impacted the game. The ref who called the T on Clark should be suspended. Missed opportunity for women's athletics.
She rolled the ball away from the refs, after they had already gotten their delay of game warning earlier in the game. Its a technical foul. Would've just been a delay of game if they hadn't already had one. It wasn't a bad call.
Delay of game rule specifically says to gain an advantage (like after a made basket and the other team likes to run). This was dead ball because it was after a foul.
The rule specifically says "to gain an advantage after a goal" .... or "failing to immediately pass the ball to an official after a blown whistle". She did one of each in the game. Textbook technical foul for multiple delay of game infractions.
Clearly rolled it away from the refs. Clearly fits the delay of game definition, and there had already been another delay of game by Clark. Not sure what issue people have with it, other than not being aware it was for a 2nd delay of game (which the commentators clearly didn't understand either) ...
She didn't clearly roll the ball away. She flicked it from behind her back, They were doing a team huddle and she flicked the ball out of the way. Ridiculous call.
For a delay of game call after already giving Iowa a warning?
How about don't touch the ball when it comes out of the next? You learn that in 9th grade.
Maybe you get away with it late if you toss the boss straight to the ref.
It's weak, but you don't suspend refs for following the rule book to a T when they don't need to. You just talk shit about them on Twitter like a normal person.
The call was the right one.
You Iowa/Clark stans are weird. It's like she can do no wrong.
Iowa would be a lot better if she even gave a little bit of a shit about defense. Instead Bluder has to devise a bunch of junk zones to hide her on that end.
correct.
Disagree. The constant moving screens made it well-nigh impossible to cover, leading to an open look outside nearly every time. When Iowa played help, LSU (to their credit) was able to hit the open cutter for layup after layup. But it’s damned hard to play D when bigger players get to move and screen. This would never ever happen in a men’s game. Couple early moving screen calls and that would all cease.
I've watched a lot of Iowa basketball this year...this was not a this game specific problem.
When she is that critical to the offense- foul trouble is the one thing that can sink the team, you can't chance it. Did Magic Johnson ever play defense (not rebounding or steals but on ball defense)? No because his teams could not afford for him to be in foul trouble. The thing that made MJ and Kobe so great is that they played such great defense in addition to being so critical on offense- more often than not though stars on offense will not put themselves in position to draw fouls by playing tight defense.
I don't believe it's any sort of conspiracy. Bad officiating is just bad business. A bunch of people tuned in to watch this game that normally would not have. Does that mean you stack the deck in Clark's favor? No. It means you keep the game under control. You don't put your star attraction on the bench for bullshit calls and you don't let the game get gooned up. That would have been worth the price of admission.
I felt the same way about the refs putting Drew Timme on the bench against UConn and I really hate Timme and Gonzaga.
I remember a men's National Championship game a few years ago when bad officiating put the POY on the bench and called a foul on a clean block....
USA Today is covering it as a game ruined by the officials. It seems clear that the refs really screwed the pooch, and the NCAA threw away a golden opportunity with their choice of officials.
Yeah, the refs were incompetent. But, I mean, welcome to college sports. The block...was...clean. I do not believe the refs were out to get Caitlin Clark for some nefarious reason. That's the absurd part.
Do you believe refs defer to Izzo? Because that's how it happens. Bluder said after the game they wouldn't even have a conversation with her while Mulkey is yelling at them every play to get an advantage.
It's not that they were out to get Clark, it's that they deferred to how Mulkey wanted the game called.
Refs let Mulkey get away with even more than Tiny Tom gets away with. There were entire possessions at her end of the court when she was on the floor. And, as far as I could tell, not one single word to her about it.
You definitely need a greater tolerance for mistakes at the college level. But in a D-1 championship that you know will be seen by millions, the organizer (the NCAA) needs to choose their best officials. That doesn't seem to have happened here.
Were they out to get Clark? Probably not, but that doesn't make it any better.
Again, this is something we've seen and complained about for years. That's not a problem specific to this game. And I saw proper fouls called that people in the game thread were grousing about because they went against Iowa. Whatever. I'm neither an Iowa nor an LSU fan, so really I'm not effected at all by it. The level of vitriol over a game that did involve Michigan is something I will decline to dissect here.
That's my point Clarence.
And to your previous comment: I'm not alleging that there was a conspiracy to get Clark. I'm saying that 1) the officiating was terrible and affected the game 2) it more negatively impacted Iowa and 3) it became the story of the game in the sport's biggest moment. And that's what everyone is talking about today. You don't have to look long to find articles and social media posts about it. I stand by my original statements.
It felt like watching a little league game where high school kids are reffing just to get paid $20. I haven’t watched NCAA women’s basketball for several years and could only make it through a half of that garbage officiating. The girls are both teams are amazing players that had the moment taken away from them since the officiating was dictating everything.
$20 to ref a little league game bought me a lot of beer in high school. Come to think of it, it was probably closer to $10, but even that bought me a good Saturday night of cheap beer.
so as an LSU fan what did you think of the technical? Your beer supply is important as is mine but seems a bit off topic.
You mistakenly assume that I am an LSU fan. I've never admitted to any such thing and I politely request that you withdraw that accusation or I'll be forced to defend my honor.
I'm sorry that my levity offends you so much.
Since you asked, I thought the technical call was unnecessary. Happy?
yes, sorry about that. louisiana roots so I get a bit charged up.
The other thing that irked me at the bar was the 5 minute plus review of the high elbow on the Iowa player. It was like they really wanted to call it on her and it seemed pretty clear to me it was not a technical or even a common foul.
It's all good.
Officials should never be a part of the story.
If they are there is a huge probability they lost there purpose.
I think it's hard to officiate games where there's a drastic difference in athletic ability and height. South Carolina and LSU both had taller players and lots of them, so the paint was a shitshow in both of Iowa's Final Four games. You could've called a couple dozen over the back calls on the more talented bigs, but you could also call all the lower body contact and extra aggressive box outs that often times continued after offensive rebounds had already been secured. On the perimeter, Clark had the advantage and was being illegally hand-checked constantly, but she was also illegally pushing off with and without the ball to get separation. I wouldn't want to ref that game. My biggest criticism was that if they're going to T up Clark for the second delay of game (which was fair to call by the rules), then they should've also went by the rulebook and warned and T'd up LSU's coach for being on the court and outside the coach's box dozens of times. Can't be ticky tack on technical stuff one way and not the other.
If I were officiating that game Mulkey wouldn't have lasted five minutes before being ejected. She wasn't just out on the floor some, she was WAY out on the floor and constantly. Egregious. Warning, tech, ejection, see ya.
This is an excellent point about officiating these games against different styles and athletes.
I thought the game was unevenly officiated. The technical call might have been correct, but was the worst call of the night.
If the technical would've been for that one singular act, I wouldn't have liked the call. But the fact that she had already received a delay of game warning, and then committed another deliberate delay of game act, makes it a justifiable tech in my opinion. It was just a dumb move by Clark. She knew she had already received a warning. And she threw a behind the back pass to the cheerleaders, nowhere near a ref, which is literally in the definition for delay of game (not giving the ball directly to an official after a whistle). Then she acted befuddled as to why she got T'd up. Great player, but a boneheaded moment with that much on the line.
I didn't watch it, so have no opinion on this game. Just want to point out that complaining about refereeing is so ubiquitous, at every level, in every sport, that it gets a bit old.
I just wrote a long thing, but I replaced it with this. Ultimately, the games (at least football and hockey) are too fast, and the players are too athletic and powerful. Remember, refs don't have the angles we do, instant replay, or slow motion. How they get any calls right is beyond me.
Unless we want the refs to review every call, we need to view refereeing the way we do net-cords in tennis: As unfortunate elements of almost randomness that, sometimes, seem to multiply unfairly on one side or the other. "Damn, the calls really went against Team X today -- bad luck." But suggesting that there's rampant corruption or incompetence is ... silly. These refs are amazing, and there's nobody out there who could do their jobs better.
That's not to say the refs can't have a bad day, of course. Because we have instant replay and slow motion, we can see when they screw up. Sounds like today they made more mistakes than usual. I just don't know what the solution to that is. "Hire better refs" is facile, and laughable.
First step is taking officiating seriously and admitting there's a problem and that they're (extremely) fallible. Which almost never happens.
For one close to home here are the refs who worked the 2013 men's title game (which was atrocious throughout, in both directions, but most infamously blew the Burke block).
John Cahill, director of Big East officiating since May of 2013
John Higgins, has now officiated 9 Final Fours including yesterday's first semifinal
Tony Greece, director of officiating for the Southern conference, works a ton of SEC games, doesn't seem to get big games anymore
Refs never have bad days.
-Every ref ever.
Watch it and tell us there wasn't massive ridiculous imcompetence going on. The whole country is talking about what a disaster it was. People complain about officiating - especially in college sports because it is incredibly bad and they need to do something about it.
I had to put "Two Americas" in the Twitter search to make sure I wasn't tripping.
Glad I'm not the only person to see it. Some folks love to tell on themselves.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Indeed. I saw it clear as day.
There is certainly some of that going on (a couple folks spelled it right out in the game threads) but I'm not sure it's as clear as you think it is.
(a couple folks spelled it right out in the game threads) but I'm not sure it's as clear as you think it is.
But spelling it out made it pretty clear, no?
Oh, it was clear on/for them. They left no doubt. I just think you are discounting how polarizing Mulkey is. A lot of the ire about perceived LSU favoritism isn't because of the racial makeup of the teams but rather how onerous she is.