Wednesday night’s game at Moby Arena had turned chaotic long before the “buzzer beater” that was waved off, and later garnered some national attention.
While national media will focus only on the final call, and run with the notion that Colorado State was the benefactor of some home-cooking in the win over Boise State, those of us who actually saw more than just the final 0.8 seconds of the first overtime know that that could not be further from the truth.
The game never even should have been tied; John Gillon cleanly stripped Mikey Thompson on the Broncos’ previous possession. The ref was in perfect position to see what the replays in Moby confirmed – there should not have been a foul.
But, of course, the whistle blew, and Thompson sank two free throws to tie it. Instead of having a chance to hold and wait for BSU to foul, CSU had to use its last possession to try to score, which is what led to the Broncos getting the ball back with 0.8 seconds.
Mainstream media needs talking points, though. Do not let that trick you into thinking anyone at ESPN actually cared about this game.
Heck, ESPN could not even be bothered to grab the correct logo for Colorado State. I would not expect anyone on that network to have had any idea of how the final four minutes of regulation were officiated.
Deadspin writers are still under the impression that the officials were literally using a handheld stopwatch. Don’t let these organizations’ fake outrage fool you. It is just a slow news day for them and nothing more.
Harping on a clock mishap is more fun than all of the awful foul calls that preceded it. If you want to say the Broncos got screwed? That’s fine. They didn’t, but that’s fine if you want to say that they did.
But to call for the result of the game to be overturned? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?
I don’t remember the Colorado Buffaloes making such a fuss when Sabatino Chen’s go-ahead 3-pointer over then-No. 3 Arizona was waved off in 2013, and the Buffs went on to lose in overtime.
That call was much more egregious than anything that happened Wednesday in Moby, and that result was never overturned. The Buffs had every right to complain, but they never made this big of a stink over it.
Overturning the result of Wednesday night’s game would set a dangerous precedent.
Could we go back and get the result of the CSU vs. New Mexico game in Moby two season’s ago changed to a no-contest? After all, a clock error in that game caused the Rams to waste over 20 seconds before fouling late, and eventually losing by just two.
Where would we draw the line? Can we go back and award the Buffs the win over the No. 3 Wildcats in 2013?
Of course we can’t. This is basketball. Refs make bad calls sometimes, and I’m not even sure the call in Wednesday’s game was wrong.
Even though his team lost, the real winner here might be Boise State head coach Leon Rice. He has done a tremendous job of pouting, and thus deflecting any blame from himself.
It’s a brilliant strategy, considering that the technical foul he picked up in the second overtime cost his team any chance of winning in that period.
It will distract you from the fact that Gillon absolutely took over, and the Broncos had no answer for him.
It will distract you from the fact that BSU blew 4-point leads with under two minutes remaining in both regulation and in the first overtime.
It will distract you from the fact that CSU guard Prentiss Nixon fouled out on a phantom call away from the ball, which resulted in BSU taking the lead late in overtime.
It will distract you from the fact that Tiel Daniels was fouled on the final play of regulation (Webb admitted to him afterward that he did).
It will distract you from the fact that both teams had an equal chance to win after the “buzzer beater” was called off.
It will distract you from the fact that the Rams thoroughly outplayed the Broncos in the second overtime.
CSU made more plays down the stretch, and overturning the result would be just as unfair to the Rams as the current result may be to the Broncos.
My advice to Boise State: take your L, and keep it moving.
Collegian Sports Editor Emmett McCarthy can be reached at sports@collegian.com and on Twitter @emccarthy22.
disqus_Gn8MYiJ4ts • Feb 12, 2016 at 1:00 pm
I am a diehard CSU basketball fan. I always love to see CSU take a win, especially when they played well to deserve it, and especially when there were previous calls, perhaps made in error, that worked against them.
I’m just a little more willing to concede that based upon the issue at hand (specifically, the call regarding Boise State’s buzzer-beater), the wrong conclusion was made. Regarding only this issue (which deserves to be a crux of scrutiny by national media and fans), Boise State won the basketball game. Regarding this issue alongside other plays, calls, conjectures and factors (see the foul calls described above) it becomes less likely that the buzzer shot was the key influencing factor in the actual or hypothetical outcome of the game. But this is a harder endeavor… Its conclusions are more spurious and less tenable. Its ok to scrutinize the decision made surrounding this one, significant play.
Boise State inbounded and shot a three before the buzzer. It is standard policy to review any game-winning buzzer shot.
What we can assume the refs intended to do was to genuinely establish whether or not the play was valid according to the “real time” of the game. Clearing the shot before the buzzer was obviously not at issue – determining if the shot was cleared before game expiration was (the implication being that human error in operating the buzzer clock accounts for the discrepancy).
The refs, using a digital stopwatch overlay, determined what appeared to be a discrepancy of around half of a second – the significance of course being that Webb shot his three after the parameters of the official game time. This call, and the methods that generated it, can and should be called into question.
ESPN did so later that evening by overlaying their own stopwatch technology upon the game feed. Others at home, using handheld stopwatches or other means, did so as well. The consensus by ESPN and others was that the shot WAS taken within a 0.8 second time frame – any possible discrepancy was by no more than a tenth of a second.
However, the Mountain West later affirmed the referees’ decision as valid, and furthermore (thankfully) provided the video evidence which led to their decision. Within this video is a bizarre phenomenon: based upon the stopwatch overlay (allegedly counting “real time”), it appears that the shot was taken in 1.3 seconds… But the rate at which this stopwatch is counting time appears quicker than the rate of the buzzer clock. I.e., there is reason to believe that the data itself, supposedly reflecting “reality” and premising a conclusion, was flawed.
The best explanation I have seen for the rate differential was, in fact, from Deadspin. Although this hasn’t become public knowledge quite yet (in the wider CSU or BSU communities), Timothy Burke contends that the replay technology was set to interpret twice the number of frames than was actually broadcast. In his words, “the broadcast was being produced at 60, not 30 frames per second.” If the computer program was indeed operating at a false setting (specifically one of 30 frames per second), this would explain the differential and the false conclusion.
The ultimate question is whether or not the outcome of this game should be reconsidered or otherwise amended.
The assertion above is that “overturning the result of Wednesday night’s game would set a dangerous precedent,” because “this is basketball. Refs make bad calls sometimes.” Previous cases (CU-Arizona, CSU-New Mexico) are given as examples of blatantly wrong calls – upon which the immediate significance of the game’s result demonstratively relied – that were not overturned.
But should they have been?
At what point can we arguably nullify an outcome? How do we assess what constitutes a shock to the system rather than a rogue variable within it? At what point does error in rule-interpretation violate the fundamental rules of the game?
A good and (I think) valid case for no contest could be made in this case. The technological mistake so obviously and so significantly altered the “normal” course of events that the basic fairness of the game was violated. If we let that go – why play at all?
More than likely, CSU’s win will stand. Emmett has a really good point that overturning their win would set a precedent by which to adjudicate all future similar and dissimilar cases. But perhaps the effort in adjudication is sometimes merited… Perhaps it is a step we need to take.
Boise State fans have legitimate beef. Let’s not be the school or the community that denies them that. Leon Rice has all the reason in the world to be upset… If it were the other way around, I’d want Larry to protest as well. And I’d hope that both the opposing community and the powers that be would have the capacity to listen, and to respond at least with a sense of understanding and concession.