SEC officiating: Bad for the whole league

One week ago today #TimHigginsCalls was trending on Twitter. One week ago Alabama showed me along with the rest of the SEC that their 7-1 record was not a fluke but they are a real favorite to win the SEC regular season title, but they couldn’t overcome ‘Memorial magic’ or…Tim Higgins magic rather.

At a crucial point in the game last week Alabama got the ball under Vanderbilt’s goal and took off down the court for what would have set up at least an attempt at a game winning shot, but Tim Higgins called this (http://twitpic.com/3yi7pn) OUT OF BOUNDS.

Okay I can forgive a close call or a close charge or block call because that is a tough call to make, what isn’t a tough call to make is a guys foot literally nowhere near the baseline and you call it out of bounds. Safe to say Anthony Grant the head coach of Alabama went BALLISTIC and he is always quiet and reserved, but as you can see they both had an equal vantage point. Sad ending to what was a great game.

Now on Twitter #TimHigginsCalls was nationally trending and here is what some people have been posting:

We’ll never need those lifeboats anyway. The Titanic is unsinkable.#TimHigginsCalls

“The Egyptian people will understand if I want to stay in office until September.”#TimHigginsCalls

New Coke. #TimHigginsCalls

Let me be honest for a second, yes I am a Kentucky fan and yes I have refereed basketball before on a junior varsity-middle school-grade school level and it is tough but some of the calls these referees are making in the SEC this year are just ridiculous. They are supposed to be professionals…ACT LIKE IT.

I have never been one to blame a loss on referees. I may question some of their calls and really just ask how in the world they would call some of the things that they call but I really never blame the loss fully on a referees whistle because I just think that is childish, you’ve got to play through the referees.

In the Kentucky/Vanderbilt game this weekend for example the beginning of the game was very nip and tuck. They were calling touch fouls at the beginning of the game and just some really touchy crap. I even put on Twitter that if the referees kept calling the game like this then Kentucky would be playing with four players at the end of the game, but the referee changed it’s pace and then just started calling stupid stuff.

It wasn’t just the calls against Kentucky. It was the calls on both sides that had me scratching my head. Brandon Knight went through a screen HOLDING HIS MAN BY THE JERSEY right in front of the referee but nothing was called, something they had been calling earlier in the game and then they call a foul on, and I don’t recall what player it was, but they called a foul on a Kentucky player inside in what looked like a touch foul.

Now I’m not sure they have a better vantage poin
t than I do sitting in my apartment watching the game but when you have national media getting on your case, as was Doug Gottlieb after the UK/Florida game, then it is a problem. I don’t think it’s as much bad calls as it is consistency. You should always call a game from start to finish the same. What’s a foul at the beginning of the game should be a foul at the end of the game and sadly as fans we are not getting that. Sadly next year we will probably be talking about the same thing, referees egos are simply going to their head.

A good referee goes unnoticed.

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