When An Airball Becomes Goaltending

When I left off yesterday afternoon, we had seen two #3 seeds have to battle down to the final seconds for their tournament lives.  Notre Dame survived, but Iowa State did not.  Baylor was in the middle of their game with Georgia State at the time and it looked like they also had a struggle on their hands.  But late in the second half, the Bears went on a 10-0 run that seemed to put the game away.  With less than 3 minutes left, Baylor held a 12 point lead and it seemed as though a #3 seed was finally going to be able to relax during the last minute of play.  Perhaps Baylor relaxed too much.  Georgia State simply would not quit.  Down 10 with 1:40 to play, the Panthers used their pressure D to score 7 points in 16 seconds, quickly turning this into a one-possession game yet again.  Baylor began using the clock, but two empty possessions followed before Georgia State cut it to two.  Baylor was fouled and could have put Georgia State in a big hole with two free throws, but missed the front end of a one-and-one, giving the Panthers one last shot.  Scrambling to get a shot in the waning seconds, RJ Hunter did his best Peter Hooley impression, tossing up a prayer from the top of the key that went in with 2.7 seconds left to win it.  Do you want to see the best celebration of the 2015 NCAA tournament?  Here it is.  Coach Ron Hunter (RJ's dad) tore his achilles during the celebration of the Panthers' Sun Belt tournament victory last week.  He had to coach from a stool the entire game.  Well, he was on the stool ALMOST the entire game:

In the final game from the early portion of the afternoon, #2 seed Arizona did what the #3 seeds could not.  They simply destroyed Texas Southern by a final score of 93-72.

Could the next set of games possibly be as good as the first set?  Not quite, but there was one overtime game and another that ended in controversy.  First, let's cover the ho-hum affairs.  Butler and Texas was a pretty close game throughout, but when the Longhorns had a chance to tie the game late, they missed from the free throw line.  The Bulldogs took advantage of that opportunity to come down the floor and hit a 3, extending the lead to 5.  Texas could get no closer the rest of the way, and with 3 games down, the Big 12 had already lost 3 participants.  In another #6 vs #11 matchup, Xavier romped over a Mississippi team that may have spent all their energy during a wild second half rally from 17 points down in their First Four game against BYU on Tuesday night.

Two very evenly matched teams met in a #7 vs #10 game with VCU taking on Ohio State, a game that would require more than 40 minutes to determine a victor.  VCU held a slim one-point lead at the half, but the Buckeyes tied it up at 66 with just over a minute remaining.  Both teams had good looks at a potential winning basket, but neither could convert.  There wasn't a lot of scoring in overtime, but a 3-pointer by Ohio St.'s Keita Bates-Diop would prove pivotal.  Down 3, the Rams missed a jumper that could have sent the game into double overtime.  Ohio State clinched it at the free throw line and moved on to face Arizona.

The final game of the late afternoon set would provide one of the more controversial NCAA tournament finishes in quite a while.  UCLA had already stirred up a lot of controversy just by being included in the bracket.  They scored only 7 points in the first half of a 39-point loss to Kentucky.  They lost by 32 to Utah, by 22 to North Carolina, and by 18 to Oregon.  If you covered up the UCLA name, you would have thought you were looking at the at-large resume of a low major.  Somehow the committee included them in the field with some margin, as they didn't have to play in the First Four earlier in the week.  They were taking on SMU, winners of the AAC.  This game had some drastic swings late.  With the score 44-34 in favor of UCLA, the Mustangs went on a 19-0 run to go up 9.  They were still up 7 with less than 90 seconds left, when the Bruins' Bryce Alford knocked down his 8th three-pointer of the day to bring UCLA within 4.  A silly SMU foul with under 30 seconds left brought the Bruins within 2.  Then the Mustangs threw the ball away, setting up this:

I mean, was the Sport Science dude not available?  In order for a goaltending call to be made, the ball has to have the possibility of going in the hoop.  There was no way that ball was going in the hoop unless a huge gust of wind swept through the arena right as the SMU player touched it.  This was yet another "the rule says..." misinterpretation that has become all too common in sports.  Here's an article that contains a screenshot of the play and an explanation of how badly the refs botches this:

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/03/ucla-smu-was-it-goaltending-rule-goaltend-ncaa-tournament-2015

But "the rule says" if it is going to hit the rim...just stop.  It has to hit the rim AND have a chance of going in.  Don't read me part of the rule, tell me it applies, and then tell me technically anything could have happened.  That ball probably wasn't hitting the rim and it certainly wasn't going in, therefore it is not goaltending.  (Misinterpretation of sports rules is quickly getting up there on my list of pet peeves, right under abuse of statistics without context)

Despite the call, SMU had two shots to win it at the other end, but both jumpers fell short.  With the UAB upset, UCLA will now be favored to get to the Sweet 16.  Quite a turn of events for them.