In the best game of March Madness so far, Santa Clara lost in heartbreaking fashion to Kentucky — and got screwed by the refs, too.
Three questionable moments of refereeing all broke against No. 10 seed Santa Clara in the final minute of regulation and in overtime during Friday’s 89-84 loss to No. 7 seed Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament. The loss ended the Broncos’ first trip to the Big Dance in 30 years.
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Santa Clara battled with one of the sport’s blue bloods evenly pretty much for the entire game and had a 2-point lead in the final minute. The Broncos missed a layup that could have iced the game with 28 seconds left, but the rebound fell to the floor, and several players dove to battle for the loose ball. Before either team seemingly had full control of the ball, the referees granted Kentucky a timeout that one of its players was calling on the floor. Santa Clara head coach Herb Sendek protested the decision, but the Wildcats were given possession and their final timeout.
Kentucky proceeded to score a game-tying layup with 9.9 seconds left. Santa Clara didn’t use one of its three timeouts and instead inbounded the ball immediately. It paid off when freshman forward Allen Graves made a 3-pointer with 2.4 seconds left to put the Broncos ahead by 3. In the chaos after the basket, Sendek tried to call a timeout while the ball was out of play, which is the only time a defensive team can use a timeout to stop play.
But the referees didn’t see Sendek’s timeout call and let Kentucky inbound the ball to senior guard Otega Oweh, who raced back past half court and let a deep 3-pointer fly with 0.2 seconds left. The game-tying shot banked in as the buzzer sounded.
In overtime, the close game continued until the final minute, when two Santa Clara 3-pointers were blocked and led to easy Kentucky baskets. The Wildcats ultimately prevailed, 89-84.
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In a postgame media conference, Sendek was asked about the sequence at the end of regulation.
“I unequivocally called timeout, but they didn’t grant it,” Sendek said. “I think the video evidence is clear, and anybody’s able to pull it up. Which is a likely response, after Allen hits the 3, that the coach would be calling timeout to set the defense. Which I tried to do, and I was successful in doing, other than it wasn’t acknowledged or recognized. So that’s what happened.”
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It’s not clear what the Broncos would have done defensively with the timeout to set things up, and many on social media said they should have fouled Oweh before he could get the shot off anyway. But even CBS analyst Charles Barkley said Santa Clara got “jobbed a little bit” by the referees not awarding the team a timeout in the postgame show.
There was one other moment in the overtime period that CBS in-game rules analyst Gene Steratore said the referees missed. When the Broncos had a shot blocked down 2 with a minute left, Oweh appeared to travel in collecting the loose ball before passing it to a teammate for a fast-break dunk. The play put Kentucky up by 4 and helped the Wildcats pull away to finish off the victory.
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Given all of that, it would be understandable for Broncos fans to leave Friday’s game — Santa Clara’s first one in the NCAA Tournament since Steve Nash was a college player at the school in 1996 — feeling bitter about how the matchup was officiated.
