The 2015 NCAA men’s basketball tournament was exciting. Personally, it’s always one of my favorite times of the year. The round of 64 and the round of 32 make up what is, in my opinion, the most electric weekend in sports — and that’s coming from a football fan.
Sadly, there is one glaring weakness holding the game back. Officiating.
As an MSU student, I was happy to see the Spartans make a run to the Final Four. I never thought they would sniff Indianapolis. But the basketball team pulled off an improbable run to the final weekend of the tournament.
That run came to an end when the Spartans met a very talented Duke Blue Devils team in the semifinal, led by a strong core of highly touted freshman.
To blame MSU’s 81-61 loss entirely on officiating would be absurd. The Spartans were dominated in many aspects and the talent gap was obvious.
Duke seemed as if it could feed freshman phenom and likely top-two NBA draft pick Jahlil Okafor whenever they wanted against MSU.
However, the free throw disparity is certainly worth noting, as the Blue Devils had 37 attempts from the charity stripe while the Spartans only had 16.
Despite MSU’s elimination, I was pumped to watch the national championship game. Most of the game was exhilarating and the first half was probably the best half of college basketball I’ve watched all season. The 13 lead changes in the first 20 minutes had me on the edge of my seat.
For such an exciting tournament and championship, it was all ruined for me in the final minutes. The officials took the game out of the hands of the players on Monday night.
With Wisconsin down five and little time on the clock, the officials made an egregious call that effectively ended the game.
After a missed layup from the Badgers, a loose ball very clearly went off of the fingertip of Duke’s freshman Justise Winslow, yet refs failed to reverse the call.
Wisconsin should have had the ball with a chance to make it a one-score game, but instead Duke freshman Tyus Jones nailed a three-point dagger.
The result of the game didn’t matter much to me, but to see it end the way it did was deflating, and it needs to be addressed.
