Referees differ on UConn-Baylor no-call
Terry McAulay was an NFL referee for 17 years and worked three Super Bowls. He knows he didn’t get every call right.
“I’ve missed a lot of them over the years,” McAulay told Hearst Connecticut Media. “But they were errors of omission, and not commission. You’re not gonna be perfect. You’re going to miss plays.”
Did the officiating crew in Monday night’s UConnBaylor women’s basketball Elite Eight game miss a call in the final second? Was Baylor’s DiJonai Carrington fouled by UConn’s Aahliyah Edwards, or Olivia Nelson-Ododa? Or both?
The answer probably has a lot to do with what team you root for. But officials and former officials like
McAulay (who reffed Division 1 men’s basketball for about three years) are neutral observers with tough decisions to make in splitsecond time.
“I believe a foul is a foul, whether it be the first minute of the first game or the last minute of the last game,” said McAulay, who now serves as NBC Sports’ officiating and rules analyst for football. “For the players’ sake, the coaches’ and the game itself, (you’ve got to be) consistent in what’s going to be a foul throughout the course of the season.”
That’s what irked McAulay the most about Monday’s call … or, in his opinion, non-call. On his Twitter page, McAulay called it a “stunning dereliction of duty by all three officials.”
He doesn’t subscribe to the idea that refs should “swallow their whistles” in the latter parts of games, and pointed to a men’s NCAA tournament game between Texas and Abilene Christian two weeks ago, when Texas (properly) was called for a foul with 1.2 seconds left, allowing Abilene Christian to hit the gamewinning free throws. Steve Wodarski agreed. “I subscribe more to the thought that you should be calling the game in the last minute the way you called in the first 39 minutes,” said Wodarski, a 35-year high school referee and rules interpreter for IAABO Board 10 in New Haven County. “Not that it’s right or wrong, but if that same play was not penalized a few times throughout the course of the game, why would you penalize that same act with (0.9 seconds) left?”
For his part, Wodarski would not have called a foul.
“Because of the way it happened,” he said. “Looking at it on instant replay, you can see the elbow gets hit, you can see the girl (Edwards) move forward. But the other thing you have to consider is the way that game was called all game. If they passed on that similar play, didn’t make the call on it throughout the game, under a minute left to go is not the time to change the way you’re gonna call it.”
That’s where Wodarski and McAulay vehemently disagree. UConn fans will quickly point out that plen- ty of fouls could have been called against Baylor throughout the game, but weren’t.
“Well, that’s just as bad, in my mind,” McAulay noted. “That’s not the way the game is supposed to be played. If that led to this not being called, it was definitely an injustice to the game itself.”
“If you’re not calling a foul,” he added, “you are impacting the game.”
Two different officials, two very different opinions. Goes to show how difficult a job it is to be a referee.
“Extremely tough,” Wodarski said. “And you also have to remember, it’s all about angles. And it depends on how the game’s been officiating throughout, and if you’re seeing something in real-time, as opposed to on instant replay.”
“Officials are good soldiers,” McAulay added. “They call the game as the rules-makers and their management want them to. That being said, once you start doing that, then each situation should become instinctive. Regardless of situation and how important it is — the last 1.2 seconds of a game or the first 10 seconds — then its just an instinctive decision. The rule’s been violated, accord- ing to guidelines we’ve been given, the foul’s called. If you do that, then you do get the one-off misses here and there, but they’re much more infrequent, the game’s consistently called, and plays like this at the end are just natural.”