NCAA Tournament 2022: 5 biggest storylines from 1st weekend games

Officiating

It would not be good of me to talk about the five takeaways from the first weekend and not discuss the elephant in the room. The officiating in the tournament this year has been questionable this season.

I want to start with this disclaimer, I am not a believer that officials win and lose games, sure they can have an impact on a game, but they do not overly decide a game. There are several things that decide a game over the course of the game and the referees have a distinct impact in probably very few of those games.

The officiating this year has been noticeable and that is never a good thing. The most recent examples were in the Purdue and Texas game which saw a very lopsided free throw disparity in favor of Purdue. Texas was trying to foul in that game but there were some very questionable calls.

The Colgate vs Wisconsin game in the first round saw a large foul disparity as well. Colgate was seemingly not allowed to play as physical as Wisconsin was, or at least that is what it appeared to show when watching the game.

The most egregious missed call cost a team a game and ended their season and kept a National Championship favorite alive to complete their quest. There was very little time left when TCU star Mike Miles brought the ball over half-court. That is where Dalen Terry of Arizona picked up his defense and was playing close defense but bodied up Miles causing him to fall and lose the ball and no foul was called.

Upon further review it was a foul and Miles should have gotten free throws, and with two seconds left in a tie game would have essentially won the game for TCU. What happened was that TCU lost the game in overtime.

In games this big, with so much riding on each minute and every second of game time the officiating must be better. Officials are always going to miss calls with things happening so fast it is understandable that they would miss calls, but in properly officiated games the officials are not noticeable and that is what they are there for, to referee the game fairly and give no advantage to one team or the other.

Officiate without being noticed and that is not what has been happening in some of the biggest games of the season. It must be better, and something tells me that it will be heading into the second weekend.