The Cal-Notre Dame Referees Weren't Wrong on Final Play

Is this really just an excuse to talk more about what Dai Dai Ames just did? Also yes!

In the immediate aftermath of Cal’s utterly improbably comeback win over Notre Dame, I was a little shocked at how uniform the reaction to the Dai Dai Ames’ 4 point, game winning play. That reaction? The refs screwed it up, ruined the game, and Notre Dame has ever right to be angry. Somebody even called me “clinically stupid” online! An insult from which I may never recover!

So I thought it would be worth looking at the sequence in more detail. Worth it in part because I wanted to better understand to what extent the refs messed up, and also because HOLY CRAP DAI DAI THAT’S A PLAY WORTH RELIVING OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Complaint #1: Logan Imes fouled Dai Dai Ames two different times before the foul that was actually called.

This is the easiest complaint to dismiss. Luckily, Cal happens to have spectacular video from the baseline that shows just how deftly Dai Dai avoided Imes’ attempts to foul coming down the court:

Note the slo-mo 2 seconds in where Dai Dai dodges Imes, who barely manages to swipe through some jersey. There isn’t a foul prior to Dai Dai’s shot.

Complaint #2: The foul that was called should have been on the floor and not a shooting foul.

I haven’t really seen any complaining that it wasn’t a foul. On pretty much every replay angle, you can see the contact Imes made on Ames, pushing into Dai Dai’s hip from the side as Dai Dai begins to pull up for his shot. Here’s the critical moment from the video above:

And here’s the same moment from the broadcast reverse angle:

Clear hip contact. OK, so a foul happened and was called. Should the shot have counted?

Well, there’s a new rule in college basketball this season - the rules committee has moved college basketball to be more in line with the NBA. Here’s the text:

Under the changes to the continuous motion rule, an offensive player who ends his dribble going toward the basket and absorbs contact from the defense will be permitted to pivot or complete the step the player is on and finish the field goal attempt.

Go back and watch the video embedded above. What I see is Dai Dai Ames dribbling to toward the basket, absorbing contact, completing his step, and finishing a field goal.

Now, to be fair, the brief blurb I quote here is lacking in specifics. It doesn’t provide a definition of a ‘gather’ like the NBA does, or even if a ‘gather’ is a part of a continuation. I searched to see if I could find any guidance videos providing refs clarifications and examples to help them officiate this new rule. If they exist, they’re not public.

But again: Based on what little we know about the new rule, I don’t see anything in any of the various videos of Dai Dai’s shot to indicate that the refs interpreted the rule incorrectly.

Complaint #3: The refs botched the situation by making the call, then reversing the call, then reversing it back to the original call.

Ok, yes, this is an entirely fair complaint. This is the part that nudged Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry from normal-amount-of-college-coach-angry into I’m-going-to-need-four-people-to-stop-me-from-committing-an-assault-angry:

Props to Cal’s cheerleaders for good situational awareness and not getting knocked over by a man who seriously needs to find some inner peace and perspective on life.

Conclusion #1: The refs weren’t wrong

All of the above might lead you to conclude that I have no sympathy for anybody who is complaining about how the refs handled the play. But if the refs had just called nothing at all, Dai Dai had hit a 3, and the game went to overtime, I wouldn’t be here castigating the refs for missing a foul call. Imes’ hip check is the kind of relatively incidental contact that goes uncalled a lot, and probably nobody would have noticed if it all went through without a whistle.

Which is part of the frustration with basketball. We all understand that there’s a line between contact that isn’t a foul and contact that is, but that line is not nearly as bright and clear as we’d all like, and we all understand that there is contact that is called for a foul more than 0% of the time but less than 100% of the time. Imes’ foul here is called . . . maybe 40% of the time? Probably less often earlier in the game, but more often late in the game because he’s TRYING to foul here and the refs are looking for it?

But I don’t see anything that makes me think the refs made a WRONG call.

Conclusion #2: Complaining about the refs is weak

OK, so I don’t think the refs made any particular error on the final game winning sequence. Do refs get stuff wrong? OH YES THEY DO!

Consider this still from earlier in the game, when John Camden made the mistake of attempting to save a ball going out of bounds (sequence begins at ~8:00 of this video):

Camden was HILARIOUSLY out of bounds. His step was three feet into the blue, right in front of a ref. But the refs let play continue, and Notre Dame used a 4-on-5 advantage to go down the court and nail a 3.

Is Notre Dame complaining about this? Hell no. Refs make mistakes, it tends to even out throughout the game, and good teams win anyway. Cal could have defended the ensuing sequence after this error better. Cal DID score enough points to overcome this mistake. Notre Dame didn’t.

Does this mean that I’ll never complain in the future when refs get things wrong and Cal loses? Eh, probably not, I’m a biased fan just like everybody else. Feel free to call me a loser the next time I do it.