Georgia basketball experiences painful loss after incident
Georgia basketball came roaring back against Mississippi State the other night to tie the game with just half a second left, but a cuddly toy and some bizarre officiating prevented that from mattering.
When the Georgia basketball team makes the headlines on ESPN, you know that something crazy must have happened. Unfortunately for Dawg fans, their team wasn’t sitting in the headlines last night because it had pulled off a remarkable and unexpected upset. Instead, UGA lost after perhaps the most bizarre officiating of the 2019 season so far.
Having tied the game up with seconds to go, the Dawgs fouled Mississippi State’s Quinndary Weatherspoon with just half a second on the clock. After the first throw dinked off the rim, a small, fluffy UGA Bulldog ended up being thrown on the floor by a probably over excited Georgia fan. Crean immediately walked over to the scorers’ table, took the arena microphone and urged fans not to throw anything else onto the floor.
The referees, however, were not happy. After Crean had finished, they awarded State a technical foul and gave Weatherspoon two more shots to essentially end the game. He only needed one. Now maybe I’m being a bit grumpy, but can the SEC hire competent officials in any sport, please? I’m not saying that the fan who threw the cuddly toy wasn’t wrong (even it is couldn’t hurt anybody). I do however think that it’s odd to punish the team who essentially handled the incident the way they are supposed to.
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I know I’ve got red and black tinted glasses but this call sucked. Everything about it sucked. If it hadn’t been made, Weatherspoon would have likely made the free throw and UGA would have ‘just lost another game’. Instead, fans quite rightly feel somewhat robbed. We’ll never know how that extra shot affected Weatherspoon and that’s already led to UGA fans grumbling. Sometimes referees just need to get out of the way and remember that fans are there to watch the players, not officials. Once again, that didn’t happen and it continues to be an issue for the SEC across the board.