The score was tied. There was less than one second to play, and Georgetown's Jonathan Wallace was dribbling 70 feet from the basket when he heard the whistle.I prefer to see the players on the floor resolve the issue than to have the officials do so, but that's a different issue. What we're now here to discuss is the play-by-play call, courtesy of Rich Chvotkin, calling the game for Sports Talk 980 in Washington.
He wondered what was up. After all, there's no way a referee would call a foul in that situation, right?
Guess again.
"At first I thought I stepped out of bounds," Wallace said, "because I was trying to make a play with the time running down. But I did kind of (feel a) nudge when I was trying to turn the corner."
"So," Wallace shrugged, "a call's a call."
And he's not about to raise a fuss over it. That "nudge" was a bump from Villanova's Corey Stokes, the 48th foul called in a frustrating, stop-and-start game. Wallace hit both free throws with one-tenth of a second on the clock to give the No. 8 Hoyas a 55-53 victory Monday night, their first home win over the Wildcats in more than a decade.
I won't go crazy here and say how bad it was, because I don't want to condemn somebody for one crazy call. It would be like doing the same to Russ Hodges for screaming "The Giants win the pennant." A few things strike me as funny about this clip:
1) Why is there a camera on Chvotkin to begin with?
2) Notice that his shirt is unbuttoned at the bottom.
3) The standing up and sitting down (which I'm guilty of from the classic Greenwich-Trinity basketball game in 2002 - the only time I've ever done that).
Oh well, it was a slighty homerish call. One other broadcasting realted note - the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the winner of the Frick Award on Tuesday. I have a feeling that either Joe Nuxhall or Bill King will get the nod.
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