Thursday, November 1, 2007

Maryland vs. Clemson

Friday, October 5, 2007

Boston College vs Georgia Tech

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Boston College vs Georgia Tech

Saturday, September 15, 2007

UVA vs UNC

Friday, February 23, 2007

Duke vs Clemson

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Duke vs Maryland

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

UNC vs MIAMI




Miami coach Frank Haith got tossed with 7:48 left in the Canes' 105-64 loss. After the game, Haith said he didn't want to talk about why.

This YouTube clip shows why. In the span of 28 seconds, this is what Karl Hess, Michael Kitts and Bob Donato missed:

• A goaltending on Brandan Wright
• A push on Tyler Hansbrough
• A dead ball call
• An insult-to-injury three-point play after the missed dead ball call
• A no-call on Hansbrough and defending Brian Asbury

Saturday, January 27, 2007

ACC admits 'timing error' in Duke victory

No. 10 Blue Devils beat No. 19 Tigers on buzzer-beating layup
-Associated Press

GREENSBORO, N.C. - The Atlantic Coast Conference admitted Friday that a timing error was made in the closing seconds of No. 10 Duke’s 68-66 win over 19th-ranked Clemson.

Coordinator of basketball officials John Clougherty said the league reviewed the game film and discussed the clock controversy with the officials, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and Clemson coach Oliver Purnell.

“The league acknowledges that a timing error was made in not starting the game clock at the correct time,” said Clougherty, adding the situation was resolved internally but did not elaborate.

The confusion started shortly after Clemson’s Vernon Hamilton made a layup to pull the Tigers to 66-63 with 5 seconds left.

Josh McRoberts’ inbounds pass for Greg Paulus went right to Hamilton just outside the 3-point arc. Hamilton hit a 3 to tie it with 1.8 seconds left, which seemed to have the game headed for overtime.

But officials stopped play to review the time remaining and restored the clock to 4.4seconds. The clock, which stopped on Hamilton’s layup, did not restart on the steal until the ball was almost in the basket — a pause of more than a second.

McRoberts then inbounded the ball to Jon Scheyer. He pushed the ball near midcourt and passed to David McClure, who made a layup as time expired to give the Blue Devils the win.

“I am satisfied with their review in this matter,” Purnell said Friday. “We now need to put 100 percent of our focus on our game with Virginia on Sunday, and that is what we will do, starting with today’s practice.”

A Duke spokesman said school officials would have no comment.

ACC officials need lesson in time management

Error in Duke-Clemson game just another example of clock woes
By Mike DeCourcy, Sporting News

Is there anybody in the Atlantic Coast Conference who can tell time?

Anyone?

Twice in the space of a week, we've had game clock malfunctions that impacted the outcome of ACC contests. In one case, the impact was significant. In one case, the impact was minor. In both instances, the result of the glitch favored the home team. That is not good. Particularly when one of the teams involved is Duke, which leads to ridiculous conspiracy theories of the sort that now are jetting around the internet.

The conspiracies are flat wrong.

But the problems are very real.

Duke got a win Thursday night over Clemson that the Blue Devils tried very hard to give away. They were inadvertently saved from having to do the job in overtime by a clock malfunction that gave them nearly two extra seconds to complete a game-winning play -- a mistake that apparently never caught the officials' attention because they were busy fixing a second clock mistake.

Four days earlier, Virginia Tech benefited from three seconds that ceased to exist in its overtime victory over Maryland.

In the case of Duke, it would have taken that blonde from Medium to recognize it eventually would help the Blue Devils for the clock not to start as Clemson's Vernon Hamilton intercepted an inbounds pass launched by Duke center Josh McRoberts. When the pass was released, the Devils had a 3-point lead and were looking to kill off the final five seconds. But the first fractions did not start ticking until Hamilton's shot was nearly 85 percent of the way to the goal. And, instead of stopping when the ball went through the goal at 4.8 seconds, the clock didn't quit running until 1.8.

How the officials did not notice the timing error on the first end is unclear, but it appears they concentrated on the amount of time that lapsed after the ball went through the goal -- none of them recognizing that the whole play had started with 5.0seconds on the clock, and it would have taken some sort of miracle for Hamilton to catch, raise, launch and land his shot in less than a second.

With the 4.4 seconds restored to the game clock by officials, Duke executed a brilliant, coast-to-coast game-ending play that led to forward David McClure scoring a game-winning layup.

The Virginia Tech deal caught less attention because it did not lead to a spectacular play, and because it didn't involve Duke. But it did create some questions about the way these kinds of situations should be handled.

With 16 seconds left in overtime and Maryland trailing by three, the Terps inbounded the ball. But the clock did not start as they began to work through the backcourt to establish a play. Soon afterward, an official noticed and blew his whistle to stop the players. After checking the game tape to see how much time had lapsed, the officials reset the clock to 13 seconds and had Maryland inbound again.

Whether or not the officials were within the rules to do what they did, this represented a significant detriment to Maryland's effort to win the game. Because the Terps had just begun their play call, those three seconds simply vanished. They were stopped before their action could lead to anything productive. And when they started again, they had three fewer seconds to run that play or to try an alternative if their initial effort failed.

It seems no one made a fuss about this at the time, but this is an issue the rules committee should consider addressing in the future. Logically, those three seconds should have been restored and Maryland should have been given a do-over -- a chance to inbound from the initial spot and take a fair shot at tying the game.

Every clock operator has the power to make time stop or start, but none should have the power to make it disappear.

© 2007 The Sporting News

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Clemson vs UNC