Official's Blown Call in Tennessee-Mississippi Game

Yesterday I was watching a college basketball game. It was the end of one of the Southeastern Conference tournament contests, this one pitting Tennessee against Mississippi (Old Miss). The game was very close and exciting, with a long Tennessee three-point basket in the closing seconds sending the game into overtime. But as the overtime period progressed, Old Miss built up what appeared to be an insurmountable lead. Still, Tennessee kept plugging away until they had chipped their deficit to only two points with about a half minute left. Then Mississippi in-bounded and one of their players threw a pass that a Tennessee player deflected off the face of another Old Miss player. The ball then went out of bounds. The Tennessee sideline rose up in excitement, seeing that they were going to get the ball back with a chance to tie or even go ahead. But the official standing right there missed the call and gave the ball back to Mississippi. They managed to hold on to the lead after that and win the game. Since I was pulling for Tennessee to win the game (although I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool Volunteer fan), I felt cheated by the ending. I can imagine how the fans, students, players, and coaches felt. Still, because the college basketball establishment frowns upon dissension in the press, this wasn't a situation where the coaches and players railed about the unfair call that may have cost them the game. And truthfully, who knows what would have happened anyway had Tennessee been awarded the ball on that play: they may have flubbed up the basket they would be trying to score or even have turned the ball over...

It's always interesting how people can focus on ONE controversial moment in a close game to judge the validity of the eventual outcome. After all, Tennessee shot rather poorly throughout that game: had they made just a few more baskets, they would have won handily without even needing overtime to accomplish it.

I have mixed feelings about the college establishment muffling the complaints of players and coaches about poor officiating. As an American, I think ideas and opinions should be freely expressed, especially those of a dissenting nature. There does need to be a sense of restraint and decorum about expressing such views, though, and it is here that the powers-that-be can and should exercise some influence over what is said.

Contrast this with a "reality" TV show I saw the other day about tattoo artists vying for some mythical reality TV tattooing title. Every time, it seemed, that a contestant was rated behind an opponent, they vociferously complained, often with anger and profanity, that the judges didn't know what they were doing. After seeing this, I can appreciate why the college sports authorities would want to quash open dissent: it can get pretty ugly sometimes...