I really don't like the copout, I think it is used way too often (by me too, a lot) but tonight was just simply egregious. The game of NCAA Basketball is taking a blow from porous officiating down the stretch in many games, tonight was one of those. Basketball is a hard game to officiate, it is probably the most subjective of any sport to police from play-to-play, so I try to be fair to the guys in black and white. Therefore, all I ask for is equality or a closer form to it. It's no secret that a home team gets more whistles than the visitors, but there's a line. It seemed like that line was blown past tonight.
The one qualm I really have with the Bears tonight is settling for too many jump shots in the final five minutes but how I could be mad at that when they couldn't buy a call? Why be aggressive and take it into the lane if you know you're not going to get the justifiable whistle?
MWC officials calling double the fouls and 20+ FT's in favor of a MWC team in a MWC gym is just an awful look for many involved. My only real recommendation (a friend texted me this tonight) is to simply have a single governing body for all officials in the nation, not segmented into conferences. The NCAA seriously has to take a long look into this, because we will see many more games be officiated in a manner that we saw tonight with our Bears.. it just has to be rectified soon.
Proud of the way UNC hung tough, this team is on a really good track. This loss doesn't deter them from a bigger goal, Although it's always difficult to see kids with a memorable achievement on the table, then see it snatched away from them very unnecessarily. Fin.