BY JAY BUSBEE
It happens every March: You get invested in some game between two schools whose mascots you can’t name and whose locations you can’t find on a map. The game rolls deep into the second half, the tension tightens to brutal levels, the crowd shots show fans of both teams in various states of agony. There’s some ineffable point — you can’t plan for it, but you know it when it hits — that you realize it’s going to be a tragedy that someone has to lose this game. The seconds tick down, the score seesaws back and forth …
… and then the refs get involved.
Sunday’s Creighton-San Diego State game was the best kind of March Madness tilt, one where the vast majority of us had absolutely no rooting interest, and certainly no animosity toward either team.
With only a few seconds left and the score tied, SDSU’s Darrion Trammell drove toward the basket, looking to float in a game-winner. As he left the ground, Creighton’s Ryan Nembhard met him in the air and … let’s just say “made contact.” The shot bounced off the rim, but refs assessed a foul on Nembhard.
Trammell had two of those end-of-the-game free throws that everyone has practiced in their own driveway their entire lives, and after a cringeworthy miss, he sank the second. With just over a second remaining, Creighton was unable to convert a Hail Mary pass. Game over, San Diego State on to the Final Four, Creighton heartbroken.
The football metaphor is accurate, since the officiating call summoned up memories of the most recent Super Bowl. You remember that, right? A controversial late holding call allowed the Chiefs to hold onto the ball and defeat the Eagles. It was, as we wrote at the time, “one of the most bogus penalties ever thrown in a championship game.”
It’s impossible to tell how much Nembhard’s arm altered Trammell’s shot, but some kind of contact happened. Would this have been called in, say, an NBA playoff game? Probably not. But it was the kind of call that’s made all the time, painful as it is.
“I think I got fouled,” Trammell said afterward. Nembhard was despondent but didn’t put the blame for the call on the refs. Plenty of other people were happy to do that for him.
“You work so hard all year, and it comes down to a play like that, I don't know,” Nembhard said. “I think we could have done a little bit more to make it a game that didn't have to go down to that, but it's a tough way to lose.”
He’s right. For 67 teams, March is a brutal month, and for Creighton, it was especially cruel.
Readers react: You've heard from us, now we want to hear from you. Hit us up at readandreact@yahoosports.com with thoughts on NCAA officiating or anything else.
