Last night, the Virginia Tech Hokies put up a valiant effort against the #4 Duke Blue Devils, but lost a very close game 91-86 in overtime. Virginia Tech played their best game of the season against the Blue Devils, but Duke escaped Blacksburg with a victory in overtime.
However, there was a clear missed foul call in the final 10 seconds of regulation on Jalen Hudson's shot.
https://twitter.com/techlunchpaild/status/570970022962708482
In this photo, you can clearly see that there is contact by the Duke player's hand and the arm of Jalen Hudson. At just about every level of the sport including college basketball, this is a fairly easy shooting foul call. However, it is clear that these referees missed what was a fairly obvious call.
This wasn't the only call that caused some controversy as Jahlil Okafor probably should have been called for a couple of offensive fouls. Personally, I'm a fan of physical basketball which is what college basketball is, but Okafor crossed the line one or two times.
However, there is no doubt that this missed foul call at the end of the game is clearly one of the biggest missed calls of the season.
Hudson would have had 2 free throws with about 5 seconds left if the referees made the right call. Duke also had no timeouts, and it would have been very hard for the Blue Devils to force overtime or win the game. This wrong call could change a couple of things that could have a decent-sized impact on college basketball.
This wrong call could mean that Duke gets a number #1 seed instead of Villanova, Arizona, Wisconsin, or someone else depending on how everything plays out. While it is best for the ACC to have 2 number #1 seeds (this is not intended as a conspiracy theory), this could impact the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
This wrong call could also affect some of the early matchups in the ACC Tournament that could also have an impact on who makes the NCAA Tournament. That's very unlikely to be true, but is a possibility.
However, the biggest takeaway is the fact that the ACC, despite being the basketball conference in the country, has some of the worst referees in the country. The ACC should be making sure that their referees are trained to be the best in the country, and they failed last night as they have in a lot of games.
There were multiple bad calls that went against the Hokies which can't be accepted by anyone from the foul that should've been called in Hudson's favor to the late full-court trap foul that was called in overtime without any contact.
Last night, the Hokies were cost a victory and a court storming because of the failure of the ACC referees. It's now time for ACC Commissioner John Swofford to step up and make sure the ACC has the best referees in college basketball instead of some of the worst in Division I.
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