Louisville Basketball Coach Jeff Walz Is A Genius And Thinks Refs Should Have To Do Press Conferences After Games
I have been saying this for years. Walz wants officials to be held accountable in post game press conferences for calls made. Now on the surface if you are a casual basketball fan you are probably thinking that's extreme. You also may be saying these guys don't get paid enough to have to answer publicly about their calls. How misinformed you are ....
Let's start here. First off ... college officials are truly skilled at what they do. I cannot take that away from them. As much shit as we give the officials, they get about 98% of calls correct. They also know the rules in a game where despite what people think , no one knows the rules. I watched a broadcast the other day in the Iowa Illinois game where commentator Stephen Bardo kept saying "They only have 4 seconds to get it over" then "They only have 1.6 seconds to get it over" referring to the 10 seconds rule of a team getting the ball over half court. Iowa called two timeouts because of how well Illinois was pressuring them on defense. Bardo was convinced the 10 second clock didn't reset and Iowa's time was running out. The problem was that rule changed a few years ago and timeouts reset the 10 second clock. And this yo-yo gets paid to talk about basketball, and he doesn't know the rules. So what kind of knowledge do you think a guy name Cliff from Sheboygan, Wisconsin has when he buys a ticket and prances into a Wisconsin game and berates the refs ? I would bet none. The real problem people have with officials, who actually know what they are talking about, is mostly the consistency of the calls. When a player initiates contact on one end a foul is called, when a player initiates contact on the other it isn't called. It's not the individual calls people complain about it's the consistency. Now single calls can be completely blown, but for the most part officials do a good job.
The part about not getting paid enough is where many people are misinformed. $3000-$3700 is the going rate per game, per official in a Power 5 conference. This isn't like the local mailman helping out in the church league to pick up $20 because no one else can do it. This isn't like me and Phil The Horse or Ryan "Baba" showing up to a men's league 3 spot to make money to go out on Saturday night. The division one refs who do this do this as a living and get compensated well , in fact very well for it. It's their job to be in shape, it's their job to be in the right spots, and it's their job to know every rule on command at the drop of a dime. So the old "don't go so hard on them" is a little overblown. On the flip side, no one should be calling their hotels in the middle of the night screaming and yelling. Friendly jabs or questioning their positioning, or blowing through their primary zones is all fair game. That's why I keep my ribbing light and easy.
So with all that said, I think it's a pretty fair statement to say referees have a very difficult job, but get compensated well for it. It's because of that compensation, that I agree with Coach Walz's statement about having to make statements in post game press conferences. Now I don't think we should be letting the media or beat reports hold an hour Q&A about every single call because it's counterproductive. But the big calls, especially late in the game, or ones that involve procedures (foul shots, timing etc), officials should be required to answer for their actions ... especially in a sport where that 1 game, or 1 call can decide the coaches fate. These coaches get paid , or fired depending on games they win. If a call is blown in the conference tournament semifinal of a coach on the hot seat, there's no do overs for him. He's on the golf course in a week out of work. If the call is correct, he advances, maybe he wins the auto bid , maybe he pulls an upset in the NCAA Tournament and he buys himself another year in a sweatsuit on the sideline. It's a butterfly effect but I think you get my point. In a sport where so much hangs in the balance for coaches ... and players for that matter (you only get 4 years of college ball) , the officials who get paid to make those calls should have accountability for their work. If you let shitty officials keep doing games with no repercussions, the conferences and the NCAA are only adding to the problem. The next thing you know you'll be little league handing out umpire assignments without a care in the world. No one wants that.
