NCAA President Donald Emmert criticized the referees for their performance in the closing seconds of last night's North Carolina win over Kentucky in the South Region finals.
"For the most part, we were pleased with the officiating," said Emmert. "The goaltending on Adebayo, delayed foul on Willis after Kentucky stole the ball, no call on Fox's drive at the end of the first half, lack of offensive interference on Maye's missed dunk and many other individual decisions all were consistent with our pre-game discussion about how to ensure that The Greatest Conference Ever secured a spot in the Final Four. However the officials, particularly John Higgins who had a somewhat soft game, should have called Monk for a push off on his tying three-pointer. There was no need to allow such a close, suspenseful game to be actually decided by the players on the court. We will be reviewing the tape to rate the referees' performance with an eye to more strictly adhering to our announced strategy of denying Calipari's Kentucky Wildcats any chance of reaching the National Semi-Finals. We may also need to tighten up our seeding strategy, to avoid the near debacle that took place this year when Kentucky steamrolled its way through an easy draw to reach the Elite Eight."
"For the most part, we were pleased with the officiating," said Emmert. "The goaltending on Adebayo, delayed foul on Willis after Kentucky stole the ball, no call on Fox's drive at the end of the first half, lack of offensive interference on Maye's missed dunk and many other individual decisions all were consistent with our pre-game discussion about how to ensure that The Greatest Conference Ever secured a spot in the Final Four. However the officials, particularly John Higgins who had a somewhat soft game, should have called Monk for a push off on his tying three-pointer. There was no need to allow such a close, suspenseful game to be actually decided by the players on the court. We will be reviewing the tape to rate the referees' performance with an eye to more strictly adhering to our announced strategy of denying Calipari's Kentucky Wildcats any chance of reaching the National Semi-Finals. We may also need to tighten up our seeding strategy, to avoid the near debacle that took place this year when Kentucky steamrolled its way through an easy draw to reach the Elite Eight."
