Noah Godwin
Assistant Sports Editor
Enough is enough. At first I thought maybe the bad breaks the Pepperdine men’s basketball team always seemed to get were just a result of the dreaded “human element” in the game of college basketball.
I thought maybe that it just seemed like the calls the referees made always went against the Waves because I wanted every call to be in our favor.
I thought maybe I was going a little bit overboard in claiming that this season’s struggles in West Coast Conference play were largely a result of bad officiating.
Maybe our players were not as aggressive and therefore weren’t drawing the fouls.
But after the game against Gonzaga University, I’m convinced that I am not overestimating the degree to which the referees in this conference have attempted to bring down the Waves.
Part of the problem I have with the idea of the human element in college basketball, which is NCAA talk for incompetent referees making so many colossal errors in judgment that they alter the outcome of the game, is that it doesn’t take into consideration that there is already plenty of human element in the game.
I’m not even sure that I can name another element in college basketball. Players, coaches, fans: all human.
And referees who work together and do not have to be the center of attention usually get the calls right because they confer with one another.
Others have seemingly failed to recognize this aspect of officiating.
Chief among them is Dave Libbey, the most attention-starved referee I’ve ever seen. Most people don’t know him by name, but look up his picture on the Web. You’ll remember him.
It looks sometimes like he is actually stirring up trouble so that he can be more involved.
And he never asks for help on any of his calls. Confidence is important for a good referee, but taking it too far can be detrimental, especially when one is wrong as often as Libbey.
Libbey and his crew might not have changed the outcome, but they definitely made it easier for Gonzaga to win following the no-call on the obvious goal-tending by Gonzaga senior forward Ronnie Turiaf.
Add the ensuing basket by the Zags, and Libbey and company produced a four-point swing.
But it makes sense that the calls would go against the Waves in that game because keeping Gonzaga on a roll and in the Top 25 is good for the WCC.
But it didn’t make that much sense for most of the calls to go against the Waves in the game earlier this season against Santa Clara University.
Former University of North Carolina Head Coach Matt Doherty called it the worst officiated game he had ever seen.
After I complained about the officials to a friend and wondered aloudwhy all the calls went against us, he gave me the answer.
And it has been staring us all in the face this entire time.
We are not in the Catholic club that is the WCC, or “Western Catholic Colleges.” We are the only non-Catholic University in this conference.
Our Protestant work ethic has resulted in claiming the Commissioner’s Cup as our own, and they’re obviously so angered by our success that they sabotage our men’s basketball program.
To our players in the face of this adversity, remember that Martin Luther once stood up and won, and there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
02-17-2005
