'Highly Unethical' - Rick Pitino Wasted No Time Blaming The Refs For Icing His Free Throw Shooter (BONUS: Clock Controversy On The Buzzer Beater)
Said it last night, just the perfect Feast Week type game between St. John's and Baylor. Two ranked teams, likely going to play in the NCAA Tournament, a lot of dumb plays and all in a ballroom. But now we got even more. We got Rick Pitino calling the refs unethical!
Before the final free throws for St. John's, Scott Drew was begging the refs to go to the monitor to review an elbow thrown (it was a flop). This is my problem. Everyone knew it was a flop, we didn't need a review. Make the call, stand by it. There's already too many replays and stoppages at the end of college basketball games. The rules are simple if and when I'm in control of the sport. You get 30 seconds to review, no decision in 30 seconds and the call on the court stands. Stop going in slow motion and looking for a finger tip.
Anyways, we know what happened after that. Jeremy Roach buzzer beater for the win:
But, wait! We got more conspiracy theories, this time the clock didn't start on time:
Now, look, these are always weird. You're looking at a couple tenths of a second that could possibly be off. I have no idea if this was started correctly on the official clock or not. But if Pitino sees this, we're going to get a whole lecture about ethics. I honestly hope we do. There's nothing worse than college basketball refs. Too many games are decided based on how they call fouls from one half to another and put guys in foul trouble. Plus, Pitino doesn't give a fuck. He'll call out anyone and everyone. What's he got to lose? You can also say that Pitino screwed up on the inbound. Didn't get it to his best shooters, didn't have all of his best shooters in the game. But I choose to listen to ethics instead. It's way funnier that way.