Pac-10 Refs Need Work

By now you have heard the outcry about the Derrick Williams blocked shot, you have probably voted on polls of whether or not it actually was goaltending. I bet you have even seen the quote from Williams that said, “I believe if we were at Washington they might have called it goaltending, but good thing we were at home.” You have yelled at your TV and you have consoled yourself to believe that it should have gone differently.

The reality of the situation is that the call didn’t go differently and UW did lose, they did have an ugly start, they did have an awesome rally, and they did come within 3 seconds of winning the game.

The real dilemma is that even the winning players are acknowledging the fact that the officiating tends to be one-sided, or with a home-court advantage, or even just down right lousy for either team, and that can’t happen. Something needs to change, officiating can’t be so bad that players can mention it in the press conference and no one really bats an eye. We can’t allow ourselves to become so used to the fact that the officiating is so bad.

PAC-10 fans all over the country have yelled at their TVs for years while watching their favorite football or basketball team play. It doesn’t matter what school you represent or cheer for in the PAC-10. It seems to be lousy officiating conference-wide.

Earlier this year, the PAC-10 announced that they are going to work on improving the officiating in football and they have brought in Mike Pereira from Fox Sports and the NFL to help improve the overall level of calls being made in games.

The level needs to be improved in basketball just as much if not more so than in football! The calls are awful, and as fans we want to see the game called fair and balanced. Sure, there are times when a call will go bad, refs are humans too, but the PAC-10 is known for its lousy officiating country-wide. The PAC-10 needs to be at least up to standard with the rest of the NCAA. As of now, they are well below the standards of the other major conferences.

This UW at Arizona game needs to go on file for the league when it comes to improving the level of calls made in basketball. It wasn’t just the goal-tending or not call at the end, and honestly, that was a judgment call. It was too close to say the ref made a bad call or not, but there were a handful of calls in this game, as there are in every game that are plain wrong! Then there are a handful of calls that are wrong but you understand how the ref saw it that way. Lastly, there are a handful of calls that are judgement calls.

The PAC-10 needs to eliminate the wrong calls, and improve the consistency of the judgment calls. There can’t be home bias, there can’t be make-up calls, and there needs to be consistency in the blown whistles

The good news is that Larry Scott, the PAC-10 commissioner, has made this one of his top priorities and he is already making strides with football and let’s hope that it carries over into basketball where the officiating has become so poor.

Finally, if the PAC-10 happens to see this- as a fan, a blogger, and a sports writer, please help improve the officiating in all of our sports. Thank you!