Clean block or foul?
Wesley Witherspoon slumped in his locker, tears eddying into pools around both eyes. The Memphis forward was the victim of one or the other, as well as the nearest eyewitness to the moment, but he offered no conclusive testimony.
“You could say I got fouled, you could say I didn’t,” said the 6-foot-9 junior as he sat in the morose Memphis locker room, “but the ref didn’t call it so it didn’t matter.”
Arizona’s Derrick Williams, the hero or perpetrator depending upon your vantage point (or alma mater), was more forthcoming.
“Honestly, with a second or two left on the shot clock, most refs don’t call that type of foul, especially when you’re trying to make a hard play on the ball,” said the 6-8 Williams, a national Player of the Year candidate.
"Earlier in the game they might have called it a foul because (Witherspoon) did fall on the ground. But late in the game most refs don’t call that.”
Fifth-seeded Arizona outlasted No. 12 seed Memphis, 77-75, in yet another nervous second-round NCAA tournament game that ended in chaos and furor. One shining moment? The last two days offered numerous debatable ones.
Memphis trailed by two with 4.6 seconds and one free throw remaining. Joe Jackson, Memphis’ diminutive freshman point guard, stepped to the line for his second free throw attempt after having made the first.
“I shot a lot of free throws before the game, and I learned that if you shot it hard it will bounce back at you,” said Jackson, whose chest bears a “King of Memphis” tattoo. “I knew if I was to shoot it like that I could get up and tip it back their way.”
Even though Memphis coach Josh Pastner did not tell Jackson to miss it, he did. The ball caromed directly back to Jackson, who batted it toward Witherspoon on the left block. Witherspoon seized the ball in mid-air as he drew contact with Arizona’s Jamelle Horne, a collision that itself, in an earlier half, might have been called a foul.
Witherspoon landed, then pogo-sticked toward the hoop where his shot was blocked by Williams. At least that’s the way referee Jim Burr, the same official who took a flier on the final three days of the Big East tournament after missing two calls at the end of the Rutgers-St. John’s contest, saw things. It appeared Williams made contact with the left elbow of Witherspoon, who sprawled to the floor after the rejection.
“I didn’t get a good view if it was a foul or not, but that wasn’t the reason we didn’t get the win,” said the 33-year-old Pastner, an Arizona alum who earlier this month voted for Williams in national Player of the Year balloting.
“I thought Jim Burr reffed a good game. I have no problems with Jim Burr.”
It was, as they say in baseball, a bang-bang play. It was also reminiscent of Morehead State’s upset of Louisville on Thursday, when the Eagles’ Kenneth Faried blocked a last-second three-point attempt by the Cardinals’ Mike Massa, who also sprawled to the court. That Faried is the NCAA’s all-time leading rebounder and that Williams is projected by some to be the first overall pick in June’s NBA draft may have had something to do with the referee in each circumstance not whistling a foul.
Or maybe in the gravity of the moment, as Williams said, the referee shrinks from impacting the game with his whistle — although, of course, by not blowing the whistle he impacts the fates of both teams just as much.
The climactic play rendered the previous 39:55 of this second-round contest a prologue. Williams was outstanding, scoring 22 points and grabbing 10 rebounds while shooting a perfect 9 of 9 from the foul line.
“Losing stinks, winning is fun,” Pastner said. “We had a chance to win the game, and that’s all you can ask for. At that point you have to have the balls go your way.”
Or the calls go your way. This one did not. Arizona moves on to face No. 4 seeded Texas. And Memphis? The Tigers’ season fades to block.
