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Final Four officials scrutinized on social media for disastrous performance in Florida-Auburn
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Final Four officials are under enough pressure as it is, but sometimes, to many fans, officials put the pressure on themselves with questionable calls. And the word “questionable” might be an understatement to describe some of the calls that were made during Saturday night’s Final Four showdown between Florida and Auburn.
Many observers couldn’t believe some of the calls that were going against the Gators in particular. To the credit of Todd Golden’s team, it still persevered despite all the, ahem, questionable calls and pulled off a 79-73 comeback victory to advance to Monday night’s national title game.
But that doesn’t mean the calls were acceptable, just because the team getting the shaft happened to still come out with the victory. The most blatant example came with Florida up 3 points late in the game, when Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara went up for a shot at the rim. Florida’s Thomas Haugh came up with what appeared to be a heroic block, but that’s not what the officials saw.
Instead, they called a foul on Haugh, which nobody could believe. Later, Haugh was clearly grabbed and held while trying to defend, but officials did not see or call anything on Auburn.
Still, Haugh and the Gators got it done, again excelling in crunch time despite all those questionable (or bad) whistles. Here is just a sampling of the reaction on social media to the questionable officiating in San Antonio:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
