Last year at this time I spoke out about the absurdity of the NCAA allowing Lia Thomas to compete in the NCAA women’s championship after competing her first three years as a male on Penn’s men’s team. By allowing Thomas to compete as a woman, Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title after finishing first in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event. Thomas also went on to be named the winner of the 200-yard freestyle event, even though Riley Gaines of Kentucky had the same time down to the 100th of a second.
At the time I spoke out against the NCAA allowing Thomas to compete as a women. I said it was not fair to the female athletes who busted their butts only to have the rug pulled out from under them because of the NCAA’s unwillingness to do what is right because they wanted to be perceived as being inclusive.
Recently Riley Gaines spoke out against the NCAA in a congressional hearing because of how they allowed Lia Thomas to compete as a female and how it put the other female athletes in positions that we would never tolerate as parents. Please watch my Video of the Day. This video is worth every second you spend watching it.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
While watching the men’s NCAA championship basketball game on Monday, I couldn’t help but reflect on how well the men’s game was officiated versus how poorly the women’s game was officiated the day before. In the men’s game, the officials were refereeing to the game on the court, while in the women’s game they were refereeing to the rule book.
Basketball has been and always will be a contact sport. There is constant pushing, shoving, banging, and touching. It is the nature of the game when 10 people are constantly moving in such a confined space. The key to officiating is knowing when the contact has created an advantage or disadvantage. If there is no advantage or disadvantage it is play-on. This is how the men’s game was officiated.
On the other hand, the women’s game was called without regard to advantage or disadvantage, it was all about whether there was contact. Thus, normal basketball plays that had been allowed in previous tournament games became fouls in the championship game. This is why the players and coaches were so frustrated. You could see the frustration in the players faces after every call.
One thing I have learned in my 50 years of officiating is that players know when a call is correct or not. They may not like it, but they know when it is the right call. The frustration you saw on the LSU and Iowa players were that of players who knew many of the foul calls were incorrect but there was nothing they could do about it. The problem is further exacerbated in basketball because of the five foul limit on each player. A second foul in the first half or a fourth foul in the second half usually puts the players on the bench for a significant amount of time. If one or two of those fouls should not have been called, it makes a big difference in how much playing time the player gets. Depending on the player and their importance to the team, it may make a difference in the outcome of the game. This is what happened in the women’s title game, the best players were not on the court for extended periods of time because of the officiating. Bench strength became a key determinate in the outcome of the game and LSU’s bench performed much better than Iowa’s bench. Fortunately, there was a silver lining. The officiating was equally bad against both teams and it didn’t determine the outcome of the game. LSU was the better team and they won.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The following from the NY Times today says it all about the officiating in the women’s title game:
It was, in a word, embarrassing.
The players did not deserve such a poorly and inconsistently officiated game. The coaches didn’t, either. And the sellout crowd and record-setting number of fans tuning in to watch Clark and Reese (9.9 million, ESPN said in a release Monday) did not pay for those tickets or turn on their television sets to see stoppage after stoppage and hear the screeching of the whistle.
This leads to my Quote of the Day: “From a fan standpoint, there was enormous disappointment with how the game was officiated because the best players were not playing. Having that level of officiating in that type of game, I think, really hurt the meteoric rise of women’s basketball. There is not perfect officiating anywhere ever, but, man, that was awful.” said John Adams, former NCAA national coordinator of men’s basketball officiating.
Feel free to share my blog or to sign up to receive it directly in your email. See the sign-up at the bottom of the blog below the video.
Quote of the Day: See above.
Orchid of the Day: Connecticut men’s basketball team for winning the men’s championship. They won all six tournament games by more than 12 points per game.
A second Orchid of the Day: Riley Gaines for having the guts to speak out against the NCAA. Thank you.
Question of the Day: Will today’s indictment push the political divide in this country to the point of no return?
Video of the Day:
Riley Gaines Shocking Testimony before VA House Subcommittee – YouTube