NCAA Tournament Officiating

[Sandman]

I think we can all agree there have been a high number (more than I remember from other years) of calls that can reasonably be perceived as a) flat-out wrong and b) potentially affected the outcome of the game.

Other than calls that are egregiously incorrect, I just want officiating to be consistent. If that's too high a bar to clear, I'd like it to be consistent in a game. I mean, surely that shouldn't be so much to ask for. If a team sees that the officials are calling it unusually close, then the onus is on them to adjust. But this inconsistency within games means that if a team adjusts, they may actually be hurting their team when the officials then do a 180 and call the games the other way.

Not sure that "levels the playing field". If a conference, e.g., the ACC, tends to have officials call a tighter, less physical game whereas another conference, e.g., the SEC, tends to officiate more like a football game, wouldn't that affect how players are coached throughout the year and how they will play on the court? By the end of a season, I would think that players in conferences with significant officiating differences would tend to play and react differently.

NCAA tournament games are, I think, officiated significantly different from regular season games, with much more physical contact and a greater reluctance by officials to call fouls, especially on critical game plays. Empirically, it seems that this tends to favor teams that play a more physical game, even if the officiating is consistent throughout the game.

[Spanarkel]

I know that NCAA officials are judged after every game and either move on or are dropped based on their performance.

I want to know that the officiating crews that CLEARY screwed up were dropped from the tournament rotation this year.

Let's focus on one crew -- I think that the most outrageous display of incompetence was the Gonzaga-Northwestern game.

Has that crew worked another game?

Of the officials working the GU/NW game(Jeff Clark/Brent Hampton/Chris Ratstatter)on March 18, only one(Hampton)has worked another game(the Illinois/Boise St. NIT game on 3/20)so far this season. Interesting that Clark worked consecutive games Gonzaga played in the NCAAT, 3/16 vs. S. Dakota St. and 3/18 vs. NW: bet that doesn't happen too often!

natstat.com/mbb/officials

PS: I don't know which official was "technically" responsible for the goaltending call and/or the technical foul.