Referee defends controversial Caitlin Clark technical foul

Officials addressed a Caitlin Clark technical foul that was handed out late in the national championship game and seemed to swing the results. 

Sunday’s national championship game between Iowa and LSU gave fans a perfect blend of March Madness ingredients.

We had the best player in the country going up against an underdog team that had never won a title with a divisive head coach who is also a legend in the sport. All of it on a nationally televised stage and punctuated with controversial calls from officials.

One of the turning points of the game happened in the third quarter, with LSU beginning to strengthen its lead on Iowa but not yet having pulled away. With Caitlin Clark on the other side of the court, no lead is safe — unless, it turns out, she needs to adjust her game due to foul trouble.

That’s exactly what happened when Clark was called for a technical foul after she tossed the ball behind her back following the conclusion of a play. It was a dead ball foul, as the whistle had been blown, and it didn’t seem to be much more than a frustrated burst that was hardly disruptive to the flow of the game.

Officials saw it differently and assessed a technical foul that also counted as Clark’s fourth foul of the game. It came with an entire half of basketball left to play and forced the best player in the country to play a few speeds slower than she had been to that point.

Referee defends controversial Caitlin Clark technical foul

Here’s a look at the Caitlin Clark technical foul and a bit of the television commentary railing against it:

Even in the moment it seemed ridiculous and indefensible, and it didn’t age any better after the game. Still, referee Lisa Jones explained the call in the postgame pool report when asked about why the foul was assessed.

What was Jones supposed to say? It was a bad call, but what makes it worse is that it can be defended within the rule book as being the right call.

A truly frustrating bow to tie around one of the biggest moments of the game.

It’s hard to argue that the foul didn’t impact the outcome of the game. Clark was forced to throttle her game down to avoid fouling out too early, which was blood in the water for a LSU team already circling a big lead.

However, it’s unfair to completely blame the foul call for turning the game in LSU’s favor, as the Tigers were already starting to flip the script and were also getting called for some questionable fouls throughout the game.

So it wasn’t as one-sided as the outrage over the Caitlin Clark technical foul would suggest, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to stomach.

Despite the awful officiating, the national championship game was an electric ending to one of the best March Madness tournaments we’ve seen in a while. It’s easy — and just — to be upset about the bad calls, but it doesn’t sour an incredible game that ended an outstanding postseason.