College Sports
Everyone will be talking about it at work. Here’s what happened.
It’s the internet’s most heated debate since “Yanny vs. Laurel.”
OK, maybe it’s not quite that widespread, but it is garnering significant attention and eliciting a wide variety of viewpoints from thousands of newfound officiating experts.
Here are the basics: In the final seconds of a scintillating women’s Final Four matchup between Iowa and UConn on Friday, the Huskies had the ball, down one, with a chance to pull ahead.
Paige Bueckers curled around an Aaliyah Edwards screen, ready to take a handoff from Nika Muhl and potentially attempt what could have been the tournament’s defining shot.
Instead, the referee whistled Edwards for an offensive foul with 3.9 seconds remaining. The Hawkeyes ran out the clock and survived, 71-69, to earn a crack at South Carolina in the title game.
Here are a few different angles of the controversial foul call. You be the judge. Foul or no foul?
Edwards did initiate with her left arm, and she also moved her left foot at the last second.
Iowa’s Gabbie Marshall, who was at the crux of the play, was grateful they made the call.
“If I’m on her hip, you can’t move into the player defending,” Marshall told reporters. “So, that is a moving screen. I was happy that it was called, and I was very excited afterward.”
CBS’ Seth Davis said it was “Obvious. Clear. Not even a question” that it was, in fact, a foul. This angle, below, shows why he thinks so.
Others weren’t quite as convinced.
Edwards didn’t think she did anything wrong.
“My point of view, it was pretty clean,” she told reporters.
Even if it was a foul, the argument could be made that it shouldn’t be called at that moment given the circumstances.
UConn coach Geno Auriemma said it’s a call you could make on every single possession.
“I just know there were three or four (illegal screens) called on us, and I don’t think there were any called on them,” Auriemma said.
Many celebrities and members of the media weighed in as well.
The most common opinion is that it was the right call by rule, but it came at the wrong time.
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