FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. _ I hate to talk about the officials, but everybody is talking about the officials.
At the checkout desk of the doctor's office Friday morning, the nice ladies there informed me it would take a minute or so for my report to print. "Good," said one. "That gives us time to ask you to explain some of those calls the other night."
She was talking about Kentucky's 81-78 loss at South Carolina on Wednesday in what seemed like one long non-stop whistle.
Then came Saturday's trip to Fayetteville where Kentucky was called for the first seven fouls of the second half, putting host Arkansas in the bonus before the Razorbacks had been whistled for their first foul.
Seven minutes later, there was UK Coach John Calipari being ushered off the floor after being ejected at the 8:19 mark of what turned out to be a 73-66 Kentucky victory.
"Coach got those three techs," said Tyrese Maxey afterward before being told two technical fouls is all you need for an automatic ejection. Not that you could blame the freshman guard. Amid the chaos, it seemed like Calipari was hit with three, four, maybe even five technical fouls.
"Of all the college basketball games I've watched in my lifetime," former The Cats' Pause publisher Oscar Combs tweeted afterward, "I have never witnessed anything near what transpired in Fayetteville. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey should be forced to watch a replay of this game for seven straight days. Total embarrassment to SEC and NCAA."
It's not just Kentucky basketball, of course. And it's not just basketball. In the NFL, it's the continuing controversies over pass interference. In college football, it's the debate over what does or does not constitute targeting. Last year's Kentucky Derby was the first time in the race's history the horse that hit the finish line was disqualified by officials for a foul.
So is officiating worse now than it has ever been? I seriously doubt it. If anything, today's officials are better trained than ever before. What's changed is what we expect from the officials. We expect them to be perfect.
After all, thanks to technology, we can see every angle of every play in slow motion, super slow motion, freeze-frame, from the overhead camera, from the pylon camera, you name it. We can see it on our 65-inch high definition television, on our laptop, on our tablet, on our phone. Live. Streaming. On demand. Doesn't matter.
Because of that, we see all the mistakes. Because of that, the officials are asked to do more to fix those mistakes. Points of emphasis are enacted. Rules are adopted or altered. Instead of taking issues off the plate, more things are added.
As John Feinstein pointed out in The Washington Post over the weekend, the NCAA college basketball committee made 20 rule changes for this season. That's a lot of rule changes for officials to keep up with, much less fans. Many of those changes have made the game harder to officiate, not easier.
Example: The recent addition of the restricted area under the basket for the block/charge call. Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey told Feinstein, "Now, guys have just moved farther out to do it, and officials have to look at them and the floor to see if they're outside the arc."
Brey's solution: Make the lane off-limits for taking a charge. It would simplify things. And we can use a little simplicity right now.
In my experience, officials are dedicated, hard-working souls trying to do a thankless and impossible job _ make correct calls in a fast-moving sport played by superior athletes.
But I worry about the future, considering the abuse the officials take on social media, on talk shows, from the fans in the stands and the coaches on the sideline. The fear is fewer and qualified individuals will want to put up with all of that, no matter the sport or the level.
Can basketball be better officiated? Of course. But remember, it's not an easy job. It's one thing to talk about it, it's quite another to do it.
