ATLANTA — This is college basketball, played by the student-athletes of the NCAA. This should be about Marshall Henderson’s poor shooting performance in his last game. Or about Jarvis Summers scoring 26 points on 10 of 16 shooting.
Or Charles Mann grabbing a long offensive rebound and driving to the hole to make what would be the game-winning layup for Georgia’s 75-73 win. Or how Ole Miss got two decent looks on the last two possessions, but Henderson and Summers missed.
But instead, this is about the officials. Pat Adams, Ron Groover and Pat Evans hijacked the final game of the SEC quarterfinals.
Georgia and Ole Miss combined to shoot 73 free throws. There were more combined fouls, 51, than made field goals, 44.
It’s not that the refs stole a win from Ole Miss, or handed a victory to Georgia; the calls were equally bad on both ends.
The refs robbed everyone of basketball. But neither coach was willing to throw the refs under the bus.
“It’s just so hard to call the game now with the new rules. The officials have an impossible job. It’s just the new rules are so hard to interpret. So I don’t think they lost control. It’s a tougher game to call right now with the way the new rules are worded,” Georgia head coach Mark Fox said.
All either team had to do was get the ball into the lane and put up a shot. The reward was a trip to the free throw line. Every time.
Georgia was in the bonus by the first media timeout of the second half. Dwight Coleby and Sebastian Saiz fouled out. Aaron Jones, Jarvis Summers and Anthony Perez finished with four fouls.
Georgia experienced major foul trouble in the first half, as four of the Bulldog starters had two fouls in the first 20 minutes. The top two scorers for Georgia finished the game with four fouls.
There has been an emphasis added to college basketball officiating this season, as Fox alluded to. More fouls have been called on hand checks and post defense. Essentially, to boost scoring the NCAA made it nearly illegal for defenses to place hands on an offensive player.
“Some people think it’s good for the game,” head coach Andy Kennedy said. “I don’t really understand it.”
For the most part this season, games haven’t been ruined by officiating. But this was the epitome of complaints that the new rules have made officials, coaches and defenders jobs tougher.
Ole Miss very likely would still be finished at the SEC Tournament if the refs hadn’t taken over the game. But this isn’t about the winners and losers. This is about basketball, which Ole Miss and Georgia got a very small opportunity to display on Friday in the Georgia Dome.
–Tyler Bischoff
tfbischo@go.olemiss.edu
