What A Game - What Crazy Calls

Refs can giveth it and refs can taketh away. Tonight, they did both in the Jays win over Southern Illinois. 73-72 in overtime. What an awesome atmosphere for the 2009 White Out. It's how the Bluejays got to Overtime and then how CU won will be what people are going to be talking about for the next few days....and how loud the 15,500 who braved zero degree temps were inside the Qwest Center at the end of the game as well.

SIU Coach Chris Lowery was left wondering (by the way - did anyone else think that the new look Coach Lowery looked like the skinny version of Sherman Klump from the Nutty Professor movie!?) what the heck happened to his team down the stretch. One issue that he had to be thinking about was how the the refs had a hand in the way the game went down.

Jays down 3 with just 4 seconds to go and Cavel Witter drew a call on a 3 point try. The Jr. then stepped up and buried 3 huge Free Throws to send the game into the extra frame. But the refs weren't done - calling a charge on Cavel and a tie up that gave the ball back to SIU and suddenly, Jays were down 4.

Jays needed the ball back and Josh Dotzler simply took it from Freshmen Kevin Dillard and gave it to P'Allen who buried a 3. Could there have been a foul called? Sure. But then the refs did make a call on a charge against SIU. After 3 by Booker - the Jays were on their way to a crazy victory but not until Sr. Bryan Mullins capped off his Qwest Center career with a halfcourt 3. Fitting for a guy who was such a pest for Creighton over 4 years to bury a prayer shot at the buzzer.

I know being a ref is tough. It's thankless but all I ask for is consistency. I don't care if you call it close or loose. I don't care if call a lot of fouls or none. Just be consistent with whatever you are going with with the whistle. Tonight, it was a crap shoot as what was going to get called. The Jays won - I'll take it but it was a hard game to get a feel for cause the refs were all over the place - especially in this final minutes of this game. The foul on Cavel's 3 probably won't get called too often so the Jays can't put themselves in that position again.

Big 12 Counter:

Huskers got down big again but came back again. This time, on the road, they weren't able to come back. 1st L of the year 65-53. Maybe next time, Fox Sports Midwest will think twice about putting a Husker game on and bumping CU vs. SIU. The games weren't even close for entertainment value. 1-1 on the year.

BTW - Does Husker BB fan now admit that not having P'Allen in a game decided by 2 points was a major factor in the outcome? Can we play it again with P? I mean, he only had 29 points today....more than NU had the entire 1st half vs. ISU. He was 4-4 from 3 at one point. Just saying :)....