Terrible Officiating Costs Rutgers a Chance Against St. John's

Nobody ever likes to see the officials take the game out of the players hands. That is exactly what happened yesterday at Madison Square Garden in a game between the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and St. John’s.

St. John’s came out on top of a controversial 65-63 contest.

The officials made a handful of bad calls towards the end of the game, with the worst one costing Rutgers a last second chance at tying or winning. Before that final call, there were three instances when the whistle should have blown in Rutgers favor.

A blocking foul, an over-the-back, a loose ball foul on a 3/4 court lob, a travel, an out-of-bounds, and a potential technical. Those were all missed, or ignored by the officials. I understand not making a questionable, close call in a tournament game, but when the foul is blatantly obvious, use the whistle!

Now, for the final play. The play started with the previously mentioned 3/4 court lob that appeared to land in a Rutgers players hands until his arms got smacked by a St. John’s defender. No call.

The loose ball ended up in another St. John’s players hands and he proceeds to pick it up and walk out of bounds, with time still on the clock. The St. John’s player then threw the ball deep into the stands, which should have resulted in a technical foul.

The officials never called any of that and immediately ran off the court. Maybe they badly wanted to watch ESPN’s Jim Rome is Burning which was on TV following the game.

This was a veteran officiating crew that some how lost their composure toward the end of a game.

Sure, we are all human and all make mistakes but they have got to perform their job better than this. The end result doesn’t hurt them. It hurts a group of student athletes.

Rutgers fought all game long, playing extremely hard. Battling back the whole game, they deserved the chance to win the game or force overtime. If nothing else, the officials should not have been the ones to take that chance away. If it was one bad or missed call, I could understand, but in total there were seven calls that were missed.

Nobody in the world would have expected the St. John’s player to travel, go out of bounds, then heave the ball into the stands. However that’s not a good enough excuse. It’s an officials job to control the game and do so until the final horn blows. They stopped paying attention just as much as the St. John’s player did.

The play was unreviewable because no whistle or call was made. The NCAA should consider revising that rule.

Players should decide the outcome of a game, not the officials. There is no guarantee Rutgers would have been able to tie or win this game, but make no mistake, they were robbed of an opportunity.