GW vs Temple. Unbelievable.

Photo by Kel McDowell

I don't know what to believe anymore. What is truth? What is justice?

Ok, so that's a bit melodramatic, but the refereeing in that game was unbelievably terrible. Or I should say, the refereeing wasn't very good for the first 18 minutes of the game, and was unspeakably atrocious for the last two minutes. I'm talking From Justin to Kelly, Octomom, Manti Teʻo's love life bad.

This OJ Simpson trial, this Bush v. Gore, began when the ball bounced towards Temple's Kashif Wyatt on the GW end of the court. With no one within a good ten feet of him, the ball bounced off his hand and went out of bounds. It was obvious he just misplayed it, turned upcourt before he had a handle on it. But like a wrestling match where a bad guy distracts the ref while another bad guy hits the good guy with a chair, the ref didn't see it. With the entire arena (a nice crowd, by the way) in full throat, the oblivious imbecile in black and white called it Temple's ball. (And, bizarrely, it looks like the ref is actually facing in that direction. I don't know what to think.)

The disbelief was palpable, everyone was yelling. You could tell Wyatt was angry at himself for letting it go, and it seemed that he was even trying to signal that the ball went off him, but the ref wouldn't hear it. Temple's ball. 

I was blind with rage at this part so my memory is foggy -- a bogus-looking foul on Patricio Garino results in two Temple free throws and Garino fouls out.

At some point, a Temple player and Larsen are tangled a bit and the Temple guy literally shoves him sideways with his forearm, sending Larsen and the ref he's standing next to tumbling. No call.

GW has the ball and Mikic takes a very early three and misses, then Temple gets the ball. Suddenly, for some bizarre reason, the refs call a ticky tack foul on Armwood a good 85 feet from the basket. The crowd erupts again. 

GW gets the ball back down 2 with about 30 to go, go down court and call a timeout. Then at the restart with 11 to go, Bynes takes the ball and goes up with it, misses, Dwayne Smith gets the board and misses, and that's game.

Normally I would have been less than pleased that Bynes took the last shot, but he did have a pretty good game, scoring 9 on 4/6 shooting, including a three. That said, I'd rather have somebody else taking that shot.

Of course, the refs are not always totally to blame, as GW didn't score at all for the last 8 minutes. A few of those shots, or one of them, and it's a different game. But considering how out of it I was just watching, I can't imagine being on the court and witnessing that. It was mind-bogglingly awful.

I don't like to go into conspiracies, but the conversation on ESPN, which seems mainly to be bettors, has some folks calling it really shady. I prefer to think it's just abominable refs.

Phew. There were some positives. GW played hard. Bynes scored 9, as did Dwayne Smith, who had some energy out there. Lasan Kromah had moments of confidence, though he also had 4 turnovers. The good guys shot 42.9% from three and outrebounded the Owls 32-25. The athletic department had a lot of hype for the game and the crowd showed up. There was a fun tailgate before and George Washington showed up in a Mike Hall jersey, along with his trusty steed, Mr. Glue.  They (we) were named fans of the game on the Jumbotron, but earlier I think we were robbed in the dance contest. Maybe the sprinkler isn't the way to go, after all. Pops Mensah-Bonsu was in attendance, as were the Nationals' racing presidents, or at least Teddy and Abe. And we unveiled the new Colonial Hoops T-shirt shop (more on that in future posts.)

And the negatives -- a lot of missed lay-ups and short shots. No points for the last 8 minutes. Temple at times scored easily. And the team seemed flustered at the end, but for good reason.

But the game's over. Let's end it with a letter from Thomas Paine to George Washington written from prison in France. Paine was angry that Washington didn't work to get him out of prison during the Reign of Terror. (I suppose I would be pretty angry too.) However, the letter could just as well be addressed by the Smith Center as a whole to the referees.

And as to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate, or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.

Oh, Temple won 55-53.