What brings me back to blogging after two weeks?

Getting hosed by refereeing. 

Today's BYU vs. Arizona State basketball game was jam-packed with stuff to write about, but the one thing I want to focus on is the final play. 

A lot happened after the ball was inbounded from the baseline, but the question that decided the game was whether or not the ball had left Abouo's hand before time had expired or not. 

Replay after replay was inconclusive. For the referees to initially call it good, then overturn it after 30 seconds of staring at tiny courtside monitor is criminal.

And to be clear, here is the official rule from the NCAA rulebook:

Rule 5, Article 2.b
In games with a 10th-of-a-second game clock display and where an official courtside monitor is used, the reading of zeros on the game clock is to be used to determine whether a try for goal occurred before or after the expiration of time in any period. When the game clock is not visible, the officials shall verify the original call with the use of the red/LED light(s). When the red/LED light(s) are not visible, the sounding of the game-clock horn shall be utilized. When definitive information is unattainable with the use of the monitor, the original call stands.

There it is... the original call was a made basket, yet it was overturned thanks to very very cloudy evidence. Unless the refs used a closer and higher resolution shot of the play than the one FSN had, there's no way on earth they could have found incontrovertible evidence that the shot did not get off in time.

It's unfathomable.

I'm not even going to mention how Arizona State's James Harden went to the line more times than the entire BYU team combined. 

What a terrible loss. Here's hoping the football team can win convincingly enough that the refs can't have any hand in the game one way or another.