Saint Mary’s probably could have beaten Arizona but official intervened to say otherwise.
It’d be naive to think that officiating at any level is perfect, because it’s not. It’s also naive to believe that officiating doesn’t ever play a role in taking teams out of games that might have otherwise broke another way.
Twice this weekend we saw officials intervene and change the course of a game. In March, it doesn’t take much to swing momentum in another direction as a gentle blow from a bad call can build into a tidal wave that drowns someone’s season.
Saint Mary’s had this happen in rather aggressive fashion in their Round of 32 game against Arizona.
The Wildcats are favorites to climb out of the West and make it to the Final Four if not the National Championship. Those chances were helped thanks to a blown call that would have kept the momentum on Saint Mary’s side of the court but instead shifted things drastically.
Here’s the play, see if you can spot the blown call:
If you missed it, Lauri Markkanen has his hand Jordan Hunter pushing him down and out of the play. That’s a foul every single time — well, except this time.
There was a foul called on the play but it was called against Saint Mary’s. The result was two free throws for Arizona and most importantly a momentum swing that sucked the air out of the Saint Mary’s side of the court.
This was the second time on Saturday that officiating likely played a role in changing the outcome of a game. Earlier in the afternoon, officials in the Northwestern-Gonzaga game missed an obvious interference call against the Zags but ended up giving them free throws on a technical foul call against Wildcats head coach Chris Collins. The reason Collins was T’d up stemmed from him storming the court in protest of such a blatant call being missed. The NCAA admitted to the blown call after the game but not before Gonzaga used the momentum swing to choke out a Northwestern rally.
These calls didn’t come on last second plays that determined the game, rather they much more subtly changed momentum. There’s no saying Northwestern and Saint Mary’s would have pulled off the upsets but having two huge calls respectively go against them didn’t help anything.
March truly is madness.