First Half Rant:

As a sports official myself, I rarely get concerned about sports officiating - knowing how very difficult their jobs are, particularly officials in fast-paced, physical sports. I know that players typically make far more errors in a game than the officials do. And I also know that these three referees surely had intentions of calling a fair game. They likely have families who love them and nice doggies that wag their tails when they hear their master's car come up the drive. It's not like they set out to suck in the performance of their job so badly that they'd make Mike Brown (as in "helluva job Brownie") look like General George Marshall or to make one wonder if Captain Joseph Hazelwood might be better able to see the elbows that Joachim Noah has been dishing out than these three ya-ya's.

I admit that I am a homer here - a Butler Alum and long-time season ticket holder. Having said that ...

The officiating in the first half of todays game has been head-in-the-rectum awful. ... I already said something to that affect? Sorry to be redundant. Granted, Butler's been playing a pressure defense (as has Florida), and they have certainly committed fouls. But the lack of calls on so many Butler possessions where a Florida guard has body checked Graves or Green all the way down the floor, and where Horford or Noah have crashed into a Bulldog shooter - WITHOUT calls seems highly inconsistent with the types of fouls whistled at the other end of the floor. Florida stepped up their defensive pressure, and helped cause Butler's cold streak at the end of the half. But the officials also did their part - whether calling travelling on Graves where his foot stayed planted or failing to call Horford for obviously fouling Graves on a shot from the corner or calling a foul on Betko for pushing Noah off of a rebound under the bucket (very little contact - other than that initiated by Noah backing in to Betko). Ah well, that's half the fun of basketball - a part of the game I've missed for many years - yelling at the officials, thru the T.V. no less. These guys have stunk it up. Call it even fellas; forget that Florida is the favorite or I may just have to throw something harder than a throw pillow at the plasma screen. I still think Butler pulls it off. Graves has been ICE cold, and he NEVER stays cold for a whole game. And Florida is likely thinking they've dodged the bullet now that they have the lead. GO BULLDOGS!

Update 5 Minutes Into Second Half:

Clearly, the officials decided at half-time to call about 1/2 as shitty a game as they had been calling, and also made the wise choice to even-out their blithering ineptness. The calls so far in the 2nd half have been pretty even - albeit in a consistently-inconsistent-across-both-teams kind of way. However, I'll take that over the first half calls (although we started in the hole due to the huge # of calls in the 1st half, and are now missing our best defensive guard due to 3 questionable hand checks and 1 clear pushing foul).

Post Game Update:

These officials can take a flying leap into East St. Louis - they've ruined what could have been a great game. Butler has done it's part too, missing a couple of free throws that could have changed the flow of the last minute of the game. And Florida did shut down a key element of Butler's offense throughout the last ten minutes. Florida is a very tough, talented team. Horford is the man - he's carried them over the last two games.

Enough of the charitable drivel. ... the refs were so bad, they were so bad, ... analogies escape me for just how much these guys blew the pooch. Very tough calls against Crone (his 5th, with Horford backing him down was a chicken-sh*t call) and the Florida big men skated with virtually no calls (most calls against the Gators were hand check types against their guards). The Bulldogs had a chance, played very well, but for too long it was 8 against 5. The more talented team won - but it wasn't all that fair of a fight.

Really interesting defense by Florida - zone with the big guys checking out to harrass Graves - pretty effective too - he couldn't get his perimeter shots off. The first game I can remember where a team has successfully prevented his perimeter shooting.

(Did I mention the refs were likely on meth, crack or, at the very least, loaded with Schlitz? I may have - please forgive me for persisting in this barely rational rant, or don't forgive me - doesn't really matter: I'm not sure if they had a bias towards the obviously bigger, stronger, more talented team, ... or maybe they just got lost in a simultaneous man-crush for Joachim Noah after staring into his big doe-like eyes, or perhaps being brushed by his sensuous mane as he flopped to the ground once again after contact with a young man fifty pounds lighter than him, or perhaps he engaged them in "discussions of worldly issues" during breaks - to quote the most lame color commentary of the tournament to-date. Off to much needed therapy, anyone seen Undecided?).