GARRETT WAIT
Sports Editor
Once upon a time, Pepperdine and Gonzaga battled for supremacy in the West Coast Conference. But the cream has risen to the top and the Zags have made the WCC their personal playground while the Waves have sunk back to the middle of the conference. It may not surprise you that the Zags are now 9-0 in the conference, but it should.
You see, it’s one thing to run a good, clean program like Bulldogs Coach Mark Few has done, it’s quite another to have the league’s officials giving the Zags preferential treatment in games against league opponents, something that happened Monday night in Spokane when Saint Mary’s had Gonzaga on the ropes.
You may have already seen the play I’m about to talk about on ESPN. It was the lead highlight on SportsCenter, a magnificent coup for the WCC, which usually takes a back seat to the Big 12, SEC or Pac-10. But this was the lead highlight for all the wrong reasons.
With 1/2 second on the clock and the score tied at 61, Gonzaga took the ball in from underneath its own basket. Junior forward Sean Mallon caught the ball, took a step and attempted to lay it in, missing because of good defense by the Gaels’ Daniel Kickert. That’s where the game should have gone into overtime, but no such thing happened.
There were two distinct problems with the play. First, the clock didn’t start when Mallon caught, but rather after he had missed the layup. The officials also noticed this error and correctly chose to look at the replay to see how much time should be put back on the clock. This is where I get into the second problem with the play.
The officials called a foul on Kickert’s block of Mallon’s layup attempt. This is the most egregious error I’ve seen in a basketball game in a long, long time. Kickert’s defense was cleaner than Danny Bonaduce during his stint at Promises yet the WCC officials didn’t want to take the risk of sending the game into overtime where there was a distinct chance that the Zags’ 35-game home winning streak could end.
This is where the clock comes back into play.
Because a foul was called, the officials had to see exactly how much time should be put back on the clock. They decided on .3 seconds. Now, you’re probably like me, wondering how exactly Mallon could catch the ball, take a step and lay it up in a fifth of a second. Maybe he’s got super speed, but at 6-9, 230 pounds, I doubt it.
This brings us back up to Mallon’s free throws. He clanked the first shot off the front of the rim. But, he’s an 80 percent free-throw shooter. There was almost no way that he would miss the second free throw and he came through, dropping the second one to give the Zags a one-point lead.
So with .3 seconds on the clock, Saint Mary’s threw a Hail Mary pass that Mallon jumps and catches near half-court. The buzzer sounded before his feet touched the ground. This means that .2 seconds is clearly enough for Mallon to take a step and put up a shot, but that he jumps so high in the air that descending from the peak of his jump takes longer than .3 seconds.
Now, I’m not a physics major, but something about that seems fishy. No, fishy’s not the right word. Illegal. That’s more like it.
The officials are fixing games for Gonzaga. That’s not something that seems like it really needs to be done. The Bulldogs are far and away the most talented team in the WCC; they don’t need a helping hand from the men in stripes. If anything, the other teams in the conference could use a call to go their way every once in a while.
There’s no doubt the WCC makes money thanks to Gonzaga’s success. Payouts for NCAA tournament appearances are skyrocketing and the conference gains corporate sponsorships because of Naismith Award co-favorite Adam Morrison’s very prominent face.
However, the league doesn’t need to pump up its budget by exploiting the other teams in favor of the dominant Zags. If anything, the league would probably do better in the long term by promoting competitiveness amongst all the teams in the league. Better games in the conference tournament leads to better ratings.
There isn’t a major conference out there that has one dominant team stomping on all the others. If the WCC ever wants to become a major conference, they’ve got to learn that and stop the officials from giving Gonzaga games due to erroneous calls.
Then again, maybe the officiating gods owed the state of Washington for all the referees’ blunders in the Super Bowl.
02-09-2006
