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after CBS and ESPN showed the replay a thousand times, you can clearly see that the ball came from BEHIND the backboard......according to the rules, that's not a legal shot and should not have counted.

ATLfan15 | 03/10/08, 09:07 AM

What a GREAT SHOT!

Joba Rules Phan | 03/10/08, 09:12 AM

Gotta love UCLA's home court advantage. First Stanford and now Cal...

jj730 | 03/10/08, 09:14 AM

after CBS and ESPN showed the replay a thousand times, you can clearly see that the ball came from BEHIND the backboard......according to the rules, that's not a legal shot and should not have counted.

ATLfan15

And not only that. Ryan Anderson was clearly hacked by a UCLA player and the foul wasn't called. Even the analysts spotted that, noting that almost invariably the foul is called if the arm comes down from above. And it did. Both plays were gifts to UCLA. Maybe the ref - by the way it was the same ref who made both calls - had money on the Bruins. Very fishy indeed.

George W. Watson | 03/10/08, 10:29 AM

PS UCLA will go down in the NCAA tournament. The team has several weaknesses, relying mainly on Love.

George W. Watson | 03/10/08, 10:32 AM

And there were so many haters (none of whom have commented on this article thus far) who tried dogged USC for complaining about PAC 10 officiating in the USC / AZ State game. It is NOT just a USC problem, it is a conference problem. Just ask Cal & Stanford.

Jabril1217 | 03/10/08, 11:18 AM

yes, the calls were bad ... and yes, UCLA gets a lot of favorable calls ... but it is also true that the game should not have been that close ... my poor Cal Bears are perhaps the worst coached team in the Pac10 ... there seems to be no plan on offense, no defense intensity, player rotation is questionable, and no adjustments ever seem to be made at half-time ... back to back blown leads and a number of 'close' losses reflect poor coaching as much as player skills disadvantages ... Cal needs a new basketball coach ... goBears!

silverblack23 | 03/10/08, 11:18 AM

Who was officiating that game Tim Higgins ???

Kaycee6 | 03/10/08, 11:31 AM

The shot was illegal. However, UCLA is my tourney pick so I don't care.

J. HOVA: BROOKLYN'S OWN | 03/10/08, 11:44 AM

Was that Brent Musburger and Steve Lavin calling the game? They gushed about that shot so much, openly acknowledging that it came from behind the backboard.
Brent's an idiot but shouldn't a former coach have at least known the rule?

treehugger | 03/10/08, 12:38 PM

The "Wilt Chamberlain" rule! That's Nichols' defense? That the intent of the rule wasn't to stop an acrobatic shot? That explanation has CYA written all over it. The PAC 10 officiating is consistenly horrible and routinely mocked on national sports media programs. It's a downright shame. Hopefully none of these incompetent clowns will be officiating an NCAA tournament game.

Jakester | 03/10/08, 12:50 PM

Illegal, maybe, Amazing, Absolutely. I don't think anyone in the arena expected the shot to even be close and when it was they were all shocked, including the officials.

broadCATster | 03/10/08, 01:07 PM

yes, the calls were bad ... and yes, UCLA gets a lot of favorable calls ... but it is also true that the game should not have been that close ... my poor Cal Bears are perhaps the worst coached team in the Pac10.

silverblack23

Complete agree with this. That game should not have been lost and Braun is the guy who lost it. This is probably the last year for Braun since the AD Sandy Barbour has noticed in print that the team is a lot more talented - and should have posted many more wins - than the record shows.

The shot was illegal. However, UCLA is my tourney pick so I don't care.

J. HOVA

Mmm. I'd change my pick right now, man. NC is strong.

Was that Brent Musburger and Steve Lavin calling the game? They gushed about that shot so much, openly acknowledging that it came from behind the backboard.
Brent's an idiot but shouldn't a former coach have at least known the rule?

treehugger

Brent lost it about five years ago and can't get it back. On the other hand, they called the UCLA-CAL game as if they were homers for UCLA.

Illegal, maybe, Amazing, Absolutely. I don't think anyone in the arena expected the shot to even be close and when it was they were all shocked, including the officials.

broadCATster

How can it be "illegal" and "amazing"? It shouldn't have counted and that makes it a missed shot.

George W. Watson | 03/10/08, 01:32 PM

Save it for the tournament, which anything can possible happen

Ghostrider 005 | 03/10/08, 01:37 PM

"The "Wilt Chamberlain" rule! That's Nichols' defense? That the intent of the rule wasn't to stop an acrobatic shot? That explanation has CYA written all over it."

Was going to say the same thing Jakester and frankly I'm not surprised in the least. When it comes to refereeing blunders seems like the most important thing is to cover your arse and deny any sort of error on the officials part.

DriveC | 03/10/08, 02:05 PM

Big UCLA fan...I will be first to acknowledge Refs have been horrible this season and both calls this past weekend were indeed suspect. However, the inability of both Cal and Stanford...especially the Cardinal, to put away UCLA with a better ran efficient offense that utilized shortening the game clock is more of the problem than blaiming the outcome on the refs. If you are going to get up big then play loose, you are only asking for trouble!! Let me ask, why inbound in corner? Why in Stanford game do you not block out on foul line to allow UCLA cahnce to tie game before final two plays? You can only blame refs for so much of the outcome!!

ucla_bruin_fan | 03/10/08, 02:22 PM

Glavin should not be allowed to broadcast any Pac10 games ... he's disgustingly pro-UCLA ... and Musberger just fawns over any/every winning team ... but Cal wasn't the only team which got jobbed -- here's from SI's interviews after Stanford's miracle loss to UCLA:
"A grinning Collison, looking as giddy as a child that had just gotten away with something, was more than happy to comment on the play.
"That was block," said Collison. "That was a complete block. We were fortunate to get a foul called. I heard it was a make-up [call]."
Kevin Love, who had an equally large grin on his face, said, "We'll take it," before he shushed Collison ...."
the players know when they get away with something ... and of course they've learned that 'fair' has no application to NCAA basketball, Georgetown or UCLA wins, or Patriots football.

silverblack23 | 03/10/08, 02:26 PM

ok what you guys fail to take into consideration was the entire game. ucla was gettin screwed in calls the entire game, and especially in the stanford game if the charge that kevin love clearly took is called, he goes to the line and ties the game. so ya it wasnt a foul but it was a make up call thats how basketball works and next time if you want to win dont have it be a close game with under a minute left but put it away. the refs didnt lose for stanford in overtime and the refs arent the one who helped make that spectacluar three pointer love made on the double pump to make it a one point game.

binford | 03/10/08, 03:12 PM

Bad calls happen folks.....happens to every team. They happen early in the game, they happen late in the game, and they happen when conference and even national championships are on the line. Take away one bad call that went the other way in the first half and you can start taking points off the board to a point where it all becomes moot.

One thing I've learned after years and years of being a sports fan is that you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT blame refs for singular bad calls. In this day and age, the audience has the benefit of seing things in X-mo on huge HDTVs over and over again to the point where every millisecond of a given play can be dissected. Refs are human and they need to make calls as they see them and do so in a way that keeps the flow of the game alive.

And yes we all know that there is a replay feature on the court but this feature is not something that should be a crutch to refs' calls. Overuse and abuse of the replay feature becomes a serious problem. Many people here might be too young to remember what it was like in the NFL when they had free reign of instant replay for every play. It was AWFUL! The flow of game was killed and the sport and fans suffered for it. There is a reason why they did away with it all together before figuring out the current limited system.

Though most Americans hate the sport...Soccer really has the concept of "game flow" down. Yes, there are plenty of flops and bad calls in soccer, but the sport remains very pure and fluid. I think Basketball would benefit from the same conventions. Besides, human faults are part of what make sports magical....being obsessed with whether every single call is good or not is part of what ruins that magic. Should refs be held accountable for their performance in games? Absolutely, and they are. They are scored and given reviews. They are rewarded and punished for good and poor jobs respectively.


And just to throw in a jab since I am a UCLA alum.....how come nobody is talking about Stanford inexpicably choking in OT? Were they that deflated from the questionable foul call? Like it's something that has never happened before in basketball? Doesn't sound like a championship-calibur team to me.

And how about Cal letting UCLA close a double-digit gap and losing all momemtum? They had fairly lofty expectations this year and fell pretty flat. They aren't even going to make the PAC-10 tournament.

Championship calibur teams are the ones who find a way to stay alive even when they have a bad game or (GASP) maybe even two bad games in a row. They don't give up, They don't point fingers at each other or at refs.

BruinsWin! | 03/10/08, 03:14 PM

I love how people want to point out that there are bad calls throughout games in an attempt to dismiss calls such as the one in the UCLA-Stanford game. It's THE bad call that makes a difference!! If the situation had properly been called a jump ball, maybe UCLA has the arrow (another rule I hate and cannot believe is still around) and gets to run another play. If it's Stanford's ball on the arrow, UCLA has to foul and if Stanford makes both free throws, the game is a wrap.

My biggest gripe with the call is that an official 30 FRICKIN' FEET AWAY made the call. When the baseline official (who was looking directly at the play) heard the whistle, even he had a ****? look on his face. I also feel that the call in the Stanford-UCLA game affected the non-call in the Cal game. Westbrook hugged Anderson with his left hand, hacked him with his right, AND the ball went off the other UCLA player!! Again, the call was made by the outside official who could only see that the ball went in the same direction as the Cal player, thus incorrectly concluded that he was the last player to touch it!!

And while I'm on my officiating soapbox, what happened to the point of emphasis on carrying the basketball while dribbling?? If anything, it's worse than before!!

bigsqueezeindecatur | 03/10/08, 03:31 PM