In Reply to: Women vs. Indiana posted by KirklandBruin on January 06, 2025 at 14:01:19
Here is a post I wrote about officiating:
Obsession with officiating
There is an element here of a small group of fans who are obsessed with the officiating and will always become outraged at it every time we are losing a game. They make comments like "That was the worst call I've ever seen." or even "the worst officiated game I've ever seen", only repeat that the next game. I'm guessing all or almost all of them have never officiated a real game (other than YMCA level or IM's) because even though they will deny it, they do not have an understanding of how difficult the job is. I won't name them (although there is one paranoid individual here who thinks all my posts are about him).
Let me explain a few facts about officiating for all those "Armchair referees":
One cannot fairly judge officiating by watching on television. They do not have the benefit of slow motion replays from several angles. Officiating is difficult. They have one chance to make a split second decision, not always in the best position to see the play. Ten players are moving around on the court and can block a clear view. Even when they do have replays on appeal, sometimes it takes several minutes to determine the correct call. Expecting them to get every call correct is unrealistic. What you see is not what they see. So you have to accept that some calls will be missed. It's part of the game.
One absolutely cannot evaluate officiating in a game where they have a rooting interest in one of the teams. Calls against their team and calls not made against the opposing team will always be over emphasized and the opposite downplayed or ignored.
Officials who work Pac-12 games also officiate games from other conferences. Therefore "Pac-12 refs" is a misnomer. It implies there are a group of officials who are employees of the conference. They are independent contractors. Almost all officials work games from more than one conference.
Officials who work Pac-12 games are no better or worse than officials who work games in other conferences. They have obtained a bad reputation mainly for a few high profile mistakes made in nationally televised football games, not the dozens of routine calls made in all the games
Even if the "Pac-12 refs" are substandard, where are you going to get better ones? NBA refs? They get plenty of criticism and why would they take a huge pay cut anyway? Women's game refs? They are awful. High school refs? Get serious. Refs from other conferences? What I found amusing is that fans have been insisting Pac-10/12 refs are the worst in the nation (citing absolutely no concrete evidence to back up the claim) for years, but then they complained about having refs from another conference working one of our recent games.
There are roughly 350 Division I college basketball games in 32 conferences played every week and I'm guessing they don't watch all of them. In order to truly evaluate officiating, one must watch many games and catalog every call and non-call for accuracy. Our biased observers always put much more weight on calls that go against us rendering their evaluation useless.
How many times do fans watch a some games from other conferences in which the officials call relatively few fouls and declare that the "Pac-12 refs" call more fouls than those from any other conference? This is absolutely false. Here are the 2020-21 numbers (similar to most seasons):
Fouls per game
SEC 35.7
BIG-10 34.4
BIG-12 34.3
PAC-12 34.3
BIG EAST 33.4
Officials are easy to blame for a loss, but the players and coaches are the ones who determine the outcome. Don't make mistakes and a few missed calls aren't going to beat you. In the average game, UCLA misses 33 shots and 5 free throws, turns the ball over 11 times, gives up 9 offensive rebounds and commits 19 fouls per game. That's 77 plays with negative outcomes. Yet if the officials make a couple of questionable calls against us, some fans will blame them for a loss.
Complaints about officials are universal. Fans from every school are guilty of this. Sure, officials make mistakes, but that's just part of the game. Players and coaches make plenty, too and that should be your concern. Get mad when we miss easy shots or commit dumb fouls or silly turnovers, not when a call goes against us, justified or not. The most successful coaches and players adjust to the officiating, not complain about it. Your perceptions of "Pac-12 refs" are usually mistaken or at least unproven, anyway.
So instead of flooding the page with posts whining about the officiating during a game and pushing off those who have mature reasonable observations, focus on the players who have control over the outcome.