The St. Johns men’s basketball game beat Rutgers Wednesday in a Big East Tournament game 65-63.
But it didn’t come without controversy.
With only seconds left in the second half, St. Johns’ Justin Brownlee stole an in-bound pass from Rutgers’ Gilvydas Biruta, traveled then stepped out of bounds with 1.7 seconds left and then threw the ball into the crowd (which should have been a tech).
The three officials — Jim Burr, Tim Higgins and Earl Walton didn’t make any one of those three calls and walked off the court after declaring the game over with.
Today, those three officials withdrew from further officiating in the Big East Tournament in the “best interests of the tournament and their colleagues”.
John Adams, the NCAA’s national coordinator of men’s basketball officiating, told ESPN.com’s Andy Katz that “Not officiating to the end of a game is unacceptable”.
Big East commissioner John Marinatto also made a statement regarding the officiating from this game.
“Both missed violations should have caused the game clock to stop and a change of possession to occur prior to the end of the game,” Marinatto said. “Neither error is reviewable or correctable under NCAA playing rules.”
Adam’s stated that the officials for the NCAA Tournament and the Conference Tournaments are chosen based on the work they have done in the past and not necessarily one bad call made in the past.
Source: ESPN, USA Today
