Don't blame the refs: UCLA-SMU goaltending call was by the book
I am about to do something that surely will make me very popular on the Internet: I’m going to defend the refs.
Thursday’s UCLA-SMU NCAA tournament game featured one of the strangest endings you could possibly conjure up, with the Bruins’ game-winning points coming on a goaltended 3-pointer. Bryce Alford’s shot was nearly all the way toward the bottom of its trajectory when SMU’s Yanick Moreira inexplicably put his hand on the ball just before it grazed off the rim. The officials called goaltending. The Mustangs had two shots at the other end but missed.
The Internet went ballistic.
Nobody likes when a great game comes down to a call made by officials. But that’s not the same thing as officials blowing a call. From the overhead angle, it seems pretty clear to me that while Alford’s shot almost certainly wasn’t going in, it still fits the official prerequisite for goaltending. According to the NCAA rule book if “any part of the ball is above the rim” on its “downward flight,” it’s goaltending, provided the ball “has a possibility of entering the basket.”
The last part admittedly requires some suspension of disbelief. But part of the ball was definitely over the rim, and no ref making the call in real time would be able to say with certainty it had no possibility of going in. Especially given the ball immediately clanged off the rim upon Moreira’s deflection.
Long story short: It was goaltending. And it was easily avoidable. But we’d rather heap fury on the officials than simply bask in the improbability of the result.
Speaking of which, what kind of deal did Bruins coach Steve Alford make with the devil? It’s still unclear how UCLA got selected for the tournament to begin with. Then his son, Bryce, goes on the hot streak of a lifetime against SMU, hitting 9 of 11 three-pointers. His team manages to win despite the Mustangs going on a 17-0 run at one point, but only with the help of a gift on the part of Moreira. And now, rather than take on Big 12 tournament champ Iowa State in the Round of 32, the 11th-seeded Bruins will face No. 14 seed UAB for a trip to the Sweet 16.
What an absolutely wild sequence of events, with or without a faux officiating controversy.
