Officiating and Bad Calls Should Not Be the Focus of the NCAA Tournament

Imagine you're standing under the basket, a couple feet to the right, watching as Kevin Love takes the ball and pounds it inside with Tyler Hansbrough defending.

Do you honestly think you'll be watching for a foul? That's what the refs do.

I refereed intramural basketball in February this year. I wasn't even close to being one of our better refs, but I didn't do terribly, either. Believe me: Fast-paced action is extremely difficult to follow.

Before I delve into my defense of officiating, let me give a bit of a lesson. Refereeing 101, if you will:

There are 3 positions for referees (in a 3-man crew, the standard set-up)- lead, center, and trail. The lead is the guy in the position described above: He's watching everything that goes on in the paint from underneath the basket. The center is on the opposite side of the court (i.e. if the lead is on the right side of the basket, the center is one the left side of the court) and is a few feet from the 3-point line (or closest player, depending). The trail is on the lead's side of the court, so when possession changes he becomes lead on the other end of the hardwood, and this official is near the half-court line.

As I just said, when possession changes, the trail becomes lead, center stays center, and lead becomes trail.

Think you got all that? It's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the most thankless job in sports- officiating.

Let's revisit the scene in the beginning. Kevin Loves dribbles once, twice, then tries a turnaround jumper with Hansbrough in his face. The ref has to watch Love's feet, any contact made between the two players, and then the shot to see if there's a foul during the shot. Oh, and if Love misses, the ensuing fracas for the rebound falls mainly in this one ref's jurisdiction, watching all of those hands scramble around, seeing if any push-offs occur.

Yeah, it ain't easy.

There has been some bad publicity when it comes to the officiating recently, and it's led to a general fear that some games will be decided by a call one way or another. Yes, I realize that awesome shot by UCLA should not have counted (the rulebook says so). Yes, USC's guy didn't foul anyone on that "behind the back" (of his own teammate?!?!) call. Yes, Georgetown might've benefited from two bad calls...the list could go on.

But do you realize that's 4 games in question out of hundreds, maybe thousands? That's a pretty good percentage of well-refereed games.

I'm not saying a ref who makes a bad, game-changing call should go scott-free. There should be reprimands made. They're payed employees, and if they screw up they should have to report to the boss(es). But they're human, and their job requires eagle eyes and quick reflexes on the whistle. That's not as easy as it sounds. I was told my first day: "If you see something close, blow that whistle." What's defined as close? It's a judgement call. But all I worked was a few regular-season intramural games, not the NCAA Tournament!

The fact is, these referees do a great job, and certainly try their best. Human error happens sometimes, no doubt about it. But this fear of a call changing the tournament is getting out of hand. Just enjoy the excellent basketball we're all about to watch, okay?