The Mountain West Conference released a statement Thursday that league officials stand by the referees’ controversial decision to wave off the game-winning bank shot by Boise State guard James Webb III in Wednesday night’s game between the Broncos and CSU.
With just 0.8 seconds remaining in the first overtime period, Webb caught the ball on an inbound pass from Anthony Drmic and launched a 3-pointer off the glass and into the net, seemingly releasing the ball before time expired.
But after game officials reviewed the play with the replay system’s built-in stopwatch overlay, they determined the game clock did not start right when Webb caught the ball. Instead, they say the ball took between 1.2 and 1.3 seconds between Webb catching it and being fully released.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eJsPC_ca3A
Video seen by officials in Moby Arena during CSU vs. Boise State Wednesday night that ultimately led to Broncos guard James Webb III’s game-winner being called no good.
However, according to ESPN’s SportsCenter, which independently timed the play, Webb’s shot took between 0.65 and 0.7 seconds to get off.
CSU went on to win the game in double-overtime 97-93, but the loss understandably felt out of place for Boise State.
“As far as I’m concerned, we won that game,” Boise State head coach Leon Rice told the Idaho Statesman.
The statement released by the Mountain West confirms the game officials followed the correct protocol for the situation, though.
“It has been determined the game officials executed the appropriate protocol and made the correct call,” the statement reads.
Some reports have pointed out that there is a timing discrepancy between the digital stopwatch in the replay used by officials and the actual game clock. The above video shows both counting adjacent to each other, and it appears at some points the digital stopwatch moves faster than the actual game clock time.
But the official call has been made and confirmed, and CSU (14-10, 6-5 MW) will take the win to move to one game above .500 in the conference.
Collegian sports reporter Sam Lounsberry can be reached at sports@collegian.com and on Twitter @samlounz.
