Northeast Ten officials

As I stated in my debut post, I cover Saint Michael's College athletics for both ESPN Radio, and the Vermont Times. In my year of covering the men's and women's basketball teams, I thought I had seen some bad officiating--I saw its WORST on Sunday afternoon.

The Saint Michael's women were taking on U-Mass Lowell in the first round of the Northeast Ten tournament. Saint Mike's had a good year this year, winning 17 games while expected to only win eight or so. Granted, in this game they didn't play their best, (Sorry Seth) but the officiating in this game did contribute to the loss by the Knights. On one end, U-Mass Lowell was doing a "Hack-A-Shaq" on the Rayner twins, and nothing would be called. Now, on the other end, Brigid or Holly would breathe on someone and a foul would be called. Go back to the other end, and I believe it was Allison Dunn who was literally pushed out of bounds and nothing was called. I am convinced the officials had the mantra of "Well, if we don't need to call a coronor, we aren't going to call anything on U-Mass." The fans were going out of their minds, and even the normally impartial press corps were shaking their heads and preparing questions about the officiating for Coach Niebling. (Note to the Northeast Ten, Jen did not say one bad word about the officiating.....She wanted to, but to her credit, she didn't.) Now, if the officiating is bad on one end, it should be bad on the other; it wasn't in this case.

Well folks, back to work. I am in the middle of not eating for the day as surgery is set for this afternoon. Hey, wouldn't it be cool if I could do a play-by-play of the surgery? I can just imagine......."Campbell goes in with the scope. He makes a nice move around the patella tendon, and FINDS A LOOSE PIECE OF TENDON!!! WHAT A PLAY BY THE DOC!!!!" Actually, since I will be awake for the deal, I may actually write something bizarre for the Times. Hmmmmmmmmm, WWAS? (Translation: What Would Alice Say?--Editor for the Times)