The Blown Call of the Year? This one gets my vote hands-down.
Not only did all three officials miss Joe McCray’s low-gut kick of Michael Lee here in the Jan. 19 Nebraska-Kansas basketball game, but a lot of people in the stands weren’t aware of it, either. Then a clueless ref nailed the two for that ridiculous double-technical.
I saw that game on television, and there were enough reruns to prove clearly that the feisty McCray, perhaps emerging as the new Jason Sutherland or Buck Grimm, shot a foot at Lee as the two were wallowing on the floor. It was clearly an intentional foul, or should have been called such, with appropriate penalty. When Mike Lee responded with something like, “Gee whiz, Joe, that wasn’t very nice!”, a ref whistled the double-tech.
(Now, maybe Mike said something a little stronger, just so you won’t think I slipped into a Dan Rather moment.)
A friend who was there cell-phoned me right afterward and asked if I thought the officiating had stunk, which it did. I was still fuming over the bungle on the McCray move and the caller didn’t know what I was talking about. Seems many right there in the hall didn’t see it because they were screened off, as all three of the refs must have been. Many who watched it later also got incensed.
At any rate, a double-technical leads to a “jump ball” situation and, as I recall, possession went to the Cornhuskers. Then when Lee got aggressive trying to cover the dangerous McCray, Mike got called for fouling. Imagine how the fans might have reacted if they’d been fully aware of McCray’s nasty field goal try.
What governs situations like this? For some reason I was checking back on college rules and for the 1993-94 season, at least three major actions went into effect. One was changing the shot clock from 45 to 35 seconds, pretty important, something Wilt Chamberlain would have loved to death.
Then oddly, two of the other ’93-94 rulings applied to the 59-57 KU-Nebraska thriller. First, “A foul shall be ruled intentional if, while playing the ball, a player causes excessive contact with an opponent.” Whatta ya call a kick, ref? Where were ya?
As for Mike Lee’s understandable reaction: “The rule concerning the use of profanity is expanded to abusive and obscene language in an effort to curtail verbal misconduct by players and coaches.” OK, so Lee might have gone a bit beyond “gee whiz”. Sticks, stones and kicks can break your bones while names can only create a double-technical blunder.
Time was when I felt people, including players and coaches, dwelled too much on the officiating in college basketball. Considering that miserable KU-Texas call against Charles Gordon, throw in football, too. Anymore, I’m more convinced than ever that officials should be required to respond publicly on what they do, same as the jocks and coaches.
I remember when a guy named Jim Bain did a lot of KU basketball games. Some acquaintances would cringe every time he was assigned because they felt he would not do well by KU. Now there are folks who think that Eddie Hightower, touted highly by the likes of Old Yeller Vitale, should give some thought to retirement. Yeah, lots of the radio and TV throats love to call attention to “my good friend Eddie Hightower.” They need to know they are angering a lot of listeners not that enamored with the guy.
Don’t know whether it’s the growing complexity of the game or that too many guys are working too much but I find myself thinking an awful lot of legitimate calls are being missed or mismanaged. Of course, more often than not my complaints involve Kansas games where I have a built-in, unfiltered prejudice.
Still, coaches can refuse to accept some zebra they think is a creep. They ought to do it more often to weed out incompetents.
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I’ll bet Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson ripped Taj Gray, his brilliant newcomer, for Gray’s hot-doggery against Texas. Gray got what he thought was a nifty block and was called for his fourth personal foul. Then Taj postured and taunted his foe, drawing a technical for gloating. That gave him five fouls and disqualification in a game where his loss could have been vital. OU had enough good men step forward, but Gray would have looked doltish had his absence led to defeat.
Don’t know about you, but I think OU’s 6-foot-8 Taj Gray and 6-8 Kevin Bookout have become the best 1-2 frontline punch in the Big 12.
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Oh, that Johnny Carson and his countless classics! One of my favorites was a Carnac the Magnificent routine (where he gave the answer, then got the question). The answer was “El Paso.” The question: “What does the Mexican quarterback do when he can’t El Runno or El Kicko?”
The immortal Carnac also had a gem about Dolly Parton, too, but if I went there, my wife would kill me. We’ll never see the likes of Johnny Carson again; we’re immensely blessed we had this incomparable Nebraska Cornhusker as long as we did.