Official counts to four, then calls a five second violation; Texas loses
With the Longhorns up two with under 10 seconds to play, Texas was attempting to inbound the ball. Watch as the official hands the ball to the Texas player and counts to four. He starts his five count when the Texas player indicates a timeout, but the ref instead calls a five second violation. Texas led by two at the time, but Arizona had a three-point play to take the lead and win the game.
According to the CBS studio crew, the rule states that you can’t call a timeout after four seconds, but after a quick search, I couldn’t find anything regarding this situation in the NCAA rulebook. (Let me know if you can.) Here’s what I found:
Section 12. Timeouts Not Granted
Art. 1. No timeouts shall be granted:
a. To the opponents of the throw-in team after the throw-in starts.
b. During an interrupted dribble.
c. To a player or coach when an airborne player’s momentum is
carrying him/her out of bounds or into the backcourt.
d. Unless there is player control by the requesting team. Exception:
Rule 5-12.1.c.
e. Until after the jump ball that begins the game and the conditions as
described in Rule 5-10 are in effect.
Again, I can’t find anything about the four second rule.
I clocked this on my stopwatch three times and came up with 4.2-4.5 seconds each time when starting with the beginning of his first arm swing. I’m not sure why you can’t call a timeout after four seconds, but supposedly that’s the rule.
Update: Seth Davis clears it up for us…
So it’s official, Texas got jobbed.
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Great vid. Had Texas to win for lotto money.
Unreal.
Did you see the ref’s Buffalo Wild Wings Pager?
I looked and found the same thing. I timed the video and got 4.5 as well. Ridiculous call. Even more ridiculous that nobody knows the rule(or lack thereof).
Does the rule book also say that J’Covan Brown is granted unlimited access to the free throw line even if it is clear he is pushing off or that a feather brushes against him? because the Refs definitely had that one down pat today. Credit to Arizona for converting a 3pt play and playing great defense to win the game.
Knowing how to get to the free throw line is part of the game. You hear about it all the time. Every team in the nation drives to the basket in an attempt to get fouled. No one should discredit a team because they use the rules to their advantage. A good team losing a game, because of a rule that was changed years ago, is disappointing though.
I got 4.5- 4.75 from when “he receives the ball” so I’ll round up. I have to agree with Chris. Brown Manufactured offense on the refs calls. Some which were ridiculous. Texas played terrible and got back in the game using the refs but now they want to blame the ref for the loss.
I believe what he’s referring to is that Brown got to the line even when there appeared to be no or little contact. He drove to to the AZ center and all the center did was stand with his hands up and they called a foul on him.
As to to the vid that was close. He appears to be extending his arm for the 5 count as the player turns to call for a TO.
Complain about Brown but I think Williams was doing the same thing in the second half. All teams know to do that- drive to the goal and take your chances. Texas was robbed as is clearly shown by the video but should have taken care of business to begin with.
I timed it 5 times and got 5.2, 5.1, 5.1, 5.1, and 4.9. Very close call, but the ref made the right call in this case.
You start counting when he touches the ball, not after the first arm swing idiot.
I’m an Arizona fan, and I’ll admit that we got away with this one call. The Texas player should have been given the timeout. From that completely and utterly neutral perspective, I’ll also say that Texas was given at least 4 points for terrible foul calls for Brown in the second half. We DVR’d all the 5 second half fouls on Brown and MAYBE 3 of them were legit. 2 were phantom fouls. That being said, the refs called a HORRIBLE game. In the end, the better team won. GO CATS! BRING ON DUKE!
the ref shouldn’t take it upon himself to affect the outcome of the game. joseph obviously had the count in his head and was calling a time out to prevent the 5 second count. the ref needs to understand the game situation and not decide the game like that. there was no reason whatsoever for him to make that call instead of granting the time out.
@Longhorn4life — No, you start counting when the arm starts to swing, that’s the first count of one.
The refs arm count is what is the deciding factor. It doesn’t matter how many seconds you timed on your stopwatch at home. He only swings his arm four times then raises for a five second count…he must complete a fifth arm swing for “five” seconds to have elapsed. Regardless of time elapsed it’s a huge mechanical error by the ref.
oops sorry about the typo
“four arm swings means four seconds”
Brent, you better check your watch. You might be working a 10 hour day instead of an 8 hour one.
Agreed. Bad mechanics for sure. He is counting at the start of the motion instead of the end. Kid had 5 seconds just didn’t know it. Ref, your motions are for the kid to know how much time he has,..Duh! Anyway, Why did Texas call a timeout anyway? Stupid in my opinion.
I’m not a big fan of either team but you are incredibly stupid. Texas clearly got robbed. Please do us all a favor and learn about what your talking about before you open your mouth. Thanks.
bull crap “im not a fan of either team” you are clearly a Texas fan and/or was not watching the game. Brown did not get touched and he would go to the line. The ref is counting in his head when he gave the ball to Joesph, not the arm swings. 5 seconds buddy. Arizona should have won by more.
I guess everything is bigger in Texas. Including the crybabies.
I have been refereeing for 30+ years and have no dog in this fight. The referee first of all should hand the player the ball..not toss it to him. I watched when the player received the ball and started my normal count without watching the game official and I ended up at 4 seconds. Then I watched the game official and it seems to me that his count speeds up a little more each count and gets noticeable between the 3 and 4 count. Not sure about the fouls you all talk about as I did not see this game. In regards to not granting a timeout after the 4 count, that has never in any NCAA rulebook that I have read or has it ever been discussed or taught at any clinic or Association that I have ever been involved. If memory serves correct, it may have been or may be something called in the NBA or he old ABA.
I noticed a few other things in other games that you all should look at as I only got to see these plays once. As trivial as these may seem, we were told by our Commisioner to make these Points of Emphasis during the regular season.
1) Butler vs Pitt – (last few seconds)Butler foul at halfcourt was valid and should have been called and Pitt DID foul Butler on the rebound BUT should that Pitt foul have been called. It appeared to me that the Pitt free throw shooter stepped over the line on his sceond free throw attempt before the ball hit anything and it should have been a violation and therefore no foul on Pitt..Butler ball underneath with 1.4 seconds or whatever it was…those of you with more computer skills can probably find it..I think he stapped over but I only got one quick look.
Lastly the North Carolina interception of the Washington inbounds pass at the end of the game. Once again I only got one look….but it appeared that the North Carolina player was a half step or so out of bounds when he tipped the ball that caused the turnover. If so that play should not have been allowed. Its a fast game and a lot of action to keep up with when you have 10 bodies moving all over the floor and even the best officials are bound to miss some calls.
I agree with the comment that none of this controversy would exist if Jordan Hamilton hadn’t called a time-out when he caught the rebound. Why he (and Coach Barnes) made this decision is a mystery to me, given Hamilton is a very capable free throw shooter. Texas may have been robbed, but they certainly made enough mistakes (turnovers) and showed a pathetic approach to offense to have deserved to lose. Until they develop better fundamentals on offense, they can expect similar results. And I say this as a UT fan.
I do have a dog in the fight but I still can’t get close to 5 seconds from the time the UT player got the ball and I heard him say time out. You don’t even have to look at the play, you can pretty much just start the video and listen for the called “time out” and sound carries a little slower than vision so really it would have been a little quicker for the ref that’s standing right by him. Unless, the video is not replaying at the “real” time, this wasn’t close and at this point in the game, there is no reason to have called that play the way is was called. The ref didn’t even get to five when you look at the video. As far as the other “incorrect” calls, that ain’t got nuthin’ to do with this one. Post the others and we can evaluate each one.
Ref was from PAC 10, prolly just a coincidence but the history of PAC 10 officials and Big 12 teams suggests otherwise. Anyone ever see the ending of the Oregon-OU football game? Weird calls happen when PAC 10 officials are used.
None of the debate matters . . . the nonsense about the 5 second rule/T.O. debate is useless, the ref screwed that up, he misenforced the rule (as there is no 4 second rule) . . . albeit a moot point as well. If Hamilton doesn’t call that 1st T.O. (regardless of Barnes’ alleged instruction to do so) game’s over . . . dribble out the clock/take the foul, no time for DWill and the less-talented Cats to come back. This is poor execution at a critical juncture by a sophomore kid. Just a shame that he was the idiot who got the rebound. The more infuriating thing to watch was Hamilton pumping his fist in the air after calling for that insane T.O., like he not only did the “right thing”, but somehow was a hero for doing it. One thing is for sure, AZ was given the game, not by the refs, not even by Texas as a whole, but one burnt orange jersey with direly under-prepared awareness skills. Not that it matters, because Duke will embarrass AZ in the next round (as they may have done to Texas as well).
Good luck Cats, and I’d say we’d see AZ on the gridiron, but . . .
^ Wow just like a little Texas Baby to bring up football when we are not even talking about that specific sport. How did the Texas football team do this year anyways? worse than Arizona did? yep, they couldn’t even make a bowl game.
Wow good luck longhorns, and I’d say we’d meet in Swimming and diving, or baseball, or rugby, but… see I can do that too!
You guys lost and we could complain about Jcovin brown or solomon hills travel or derricks no call but no you are just gonna cry and blame the officials.
Funny thing is that Texas is actually better in both swimming and baseball than az. and i dont have a clue about diving or rugby so no comment there.
Anyways, this is all about the ref’s fuck up regarding the count, not anything else. This ref clearly single handedly affected the outcome of the game with just seconds left.
btw im not a Texas fan, just watched the game and grew up in big12 country
Look at the Youtube Viewer.
Take a look at the counter which is by the second.
The Texas player gets the ball in his hands between the 0:01 – 0:02 mark… then hit pause when he calls time out. It is about the 0:06 mark.
So it was somewhere between 4.5-5.0 seconds. The ref keeps the count in his head and not on some electronic device. He isn’t perfect and neither are any of us. Officials errors are a part of every sporting contest.
In this game in particular, the fact is that the officials missed more than that call over 40 minutes that might have benefited Texas or Arizona. Arizona was called for more total fouls during the contest and a couple of passes that were tipped were awarded to the wrong squad. Did we go back with a fine tooth video editor and nit-pik every second of the 40 minute contest….uhmmm no.
So why hold the officials to a standard of perfection in the last 10 seconds of a game?
The official is human and fallible. Cut him a break on that half a second. Had Barnes’ players executed a better game they would have not have been in that situation to lose!
I think it is closer to 5 seconds than you think. No where in the rules does it say that his arm has to swing 5 times for it to be 5 seconds. It is when the player gets the ball . I think it was close enough and Texas should have called the timeout sooner or got the damn ball in bounds.
That’s the accepted method to count. Check any officiating website with video. The whole point of the arm swing is so that everyone can see where the ref’s count is at. The count starts when he starts to swing his arm the first time.
I have decent video editing software on my computer. Caveats: the YouTube video is poor resolution and there is a non-zero possibility that the recording equipment or the compression algorithm they used to upload to YouTube could be very slightly off — perhaps enough to make a difference in this particular case. For whatever it is worth, however, here are the numbers:
The player appears to have both hands on the ball and have control at 1.218 seconds (his second hand appears to touch at 1.183, with control full by 1.218). He turns to look at the ref at 5.623 and makes a T by 5.728, with a very clear T by 5.823. Ref starts to signal the 5-second violation at 5.943, clearly showing it by 6.023.
The ball left the ref’s hand by 0.800, so if the ref started counting from that point, it would have been extremely close (close enough that the ref could have literally been in the process of saying “five” when the T was called). Counting from the time the player first has the ball, it is under 5 seconds. In either case, the player clearly turns to the ref and makes the T before the ref starts to motion the 5-second call.
On balance, it looks like the call was early and that the T should have been granted.
Whether this particular call should be scrutinized more closely than other calls throughout the game, whether Texas did themselves in elsewhere in the game, etc., are of course separate, but interesting, questions . . .
Again, the count starts not when the player receives the ball, but when the ref starts the motion of the arm. He clearly calls the five-second call at the end of his fourth swing, so a second early by his own count.
If you follow the U-Tube video it is almost exactly 5 seconds from time he gives player the ball — U tube video is at 0 seconds, and it turns to 5 seconds when he makes the 5 seconds call. It is very close. I suspect, in most circumstances he would have given him the time out, but then Arizona fans could argue ref should have called a fall on the prior block by Thomas.
Wow..I thought that it looked like it was less than 5 originally but after watching the video carefully he definitely called the timeout almost immediately after the 4 count. Sorry for the players and fans of Texas. I’m a KY fan but hate to see any team get hosed on such a bad call.
Again (I’m saying this a lot), it doesn’t matter what the youtube time says or even what a stopwatch says. It’s all about the hand motion of the official. That is the official count. And he called a 5-second violation just after he finished his fourth count.
John, well actually he started to make the fifth hand motion and got about halfway through it (almost looks like he made an attempt to quickly finish it without fully extending), but I agree that he didn’t finish the fifth. Do you think he lost count, or just got caught up in the moment?
Anyway, too bad to see that it went the way it did, and I’m sure the official is feeling pretty bad about it right now.
You’re right, he did start the fifth count but the player asks for the timeout just as he starts the final count.
I think he got caught up in the moment. Who knows.