Western played Houston at home the other night and it was a wrestling match in every aspect until the end, when it suddenly turned political in a moment of moral vulgarity. The snow started falling in droves right as the sun set and the whole town immediately iced over. Walking to the game, you could slide threefold for every step taken. My buddy Joe and I showed up at halftime to avoid a fee and we parked ourselves in the middle of the arena. Western games are well attended by the community, which is funny because the community is mostly elderly in age, but hardly in spirit. The black Cadillacs and Lincoln towncars with the white leather seats were hardly deterred by the weather, like most of the demographic would be, thanks to tire chains and the twenty minute pre heat of the car after dinner. The arena was lively inside. I had no idea it was white out night either. The game was tied at 42 at the half and the grudge match continued when the clock started back up. I settled down and tuned in to make sense of the happenings. Houston has a guard that's currently the nation's leading scorer at nearly 25 points a game and he was Zen with the ball in his hand. Slow motion, in complete control, not expending more energy than called for, enlightened, blessed with the inward eye, he commandeered every aspect of the dharma's hoops spectrum. He could create his own shot with ease and take it strong to the basket, with a momentum that couldn't be stopped simply by a much larger center's presence in the paint. Probably won't make it to the NBA because he's undersized by NBA standards, but the guy still played with his heart on his sleeve and had nothing to lose-everything to gain. Houston was big and they flexed it mightily and Western is skinny and they took it gruesomely. By neither luck nor fate, Western still was still in the game because Houston couldn't play team defense. They swarmed the ball like mad but completely fall apart after a dribble penetration. And that's exactly what AJ Slaughter does so well. And with Anthony Sally, the senior point guard most responsible for Western's offensive woes this season, out of the game, Slaughter touched the ball every possession and made the offense happen. It's relevant to mention that the referees had been calling a whole lotta fouls all night long. No one important was out of the game, but there were three keen sets of eyes acutely tuned to the action happening and nothing was slipping past them. Holding fouls off the ball , three second violations, a broken rule was not to be missed. The combined factors mentioned above set the tone for the end of the game.
The end came down to the wire. With under a minute left, a prayer of a three pointer and a steal at midcourt tied the game up at 72 and Houston's main man hustled the ball down the court with 20 seconds remaining and the shot clock off. Everyone in the gym was on their feet, hollering. The guy dribbled near the halfcourt line. Slaughter was guarding him. All the Houston players were on the low block or the deep corners, spreading the defense out as far as possible. He finally made his move with 8 seconds left, feigning right but crossing left to find an angle. There wasn't any. He pulled up in front of his bench and shoot a off balance 23 foot shot that would have been a terrible look for anyone else but him. It looked good but for but a moment. It bounced high and came off hard near the free throw line, where it was scooped out of the scrum by Houston, who dribbled once and forced up a floater. That's when the whistle blew. More than one. I saw the the black ref near the scorer's table signaling that it was an On The Ball call, nonshooting violation which would have given Houston the ball near the halfcourt line with 0.02 on the clock. Pretty much game over. But that didn't happen. When he called the foul and signaled for it, he was facing the other refs with his back to the Western bench. The Western bench was heated. The coach was far on the court with a water bottle in his hand. He obviously thought they called a shooting foul. So did the rest of the gym. In slow motion, the black ref turned to the scorer's table to call the foul and that's when Western's coach threw his water bottle back at the bench in anger....
Stop. Let's consider the powers at be, here in this matter. Western's coach is in his second year and has struggled more than expected this year. They are 19-14 with a younger team, who's captains are juniors and seniors looking to step out of the shadow of success set by their previous teams and finally make a name for themselves. They have won big this year, beating a solid Vandy team in Nashville and lost dumbly, mainly at home vs MTSU, which hasn't happened in over 20 years. Western really needed a home win. For morale, confidence, help the coach's job, help keep spirit up on Bowling Green, the list goes on. More benefit would have been found in a win than in learning to cope with a loss. A loss would have dug the hole exponentially deeper. A dirty loss, at home, would be a twisted, cruel insult to an undeserved injury.....
....at the bench in anger, which was immediately spotted by Eagle Eye calling the foul, who didn't hesitate to T the man up. 0.02 second left, technical foul, two free throws, game over. You just gave the game away. The players' effort were essentially rendered nill, as they didn't decide the outcome of the game. I was already in overdrive thinking of that call's ramifications, when the notion of survival instinctively took over. Folks were livid. Old men were letting the finger fly. Their wives furiously waved their jackets at the man. I passed a cute mom, short and blonde maybe forty, with kids no doubt packs lunches before she runs, probably teaches Sunday School-looking Mom yell "Mother FUCKING SHIT" at the top of lungs. That tore me up a little bit. Meanwhile, Joe was loving the violence that was on the cusp of happening. State troopers lumbered onto the court in front of the student section, naturally the most temperamental party represented. The PA system was reminding folks that THROWING THINGS ONTO THE COURT IS NOT ALLOWED. The air was think from fumes of anger. Bad vibes abounded so we split.
What can be learned from this episode? One might say,"Yeah but that referee was only doing his job. How can you fault him for that?" The fact that the referee did exactly what he was suppose to do is the heart of the problem. How can his decision to follow orders, call the foul, and give the game to the other team be seen as the moral thing to do in that situation? Would he have made the same decision if he would have been aware of all the variables at work? His perspective was strictly limited to the black and white scope of thinking. Thrown water bottle = technical. One plus one will always equal two. For some people the world is always Either Or, never Both And, especially considering morality. I believe the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome and that referee should have let the game play out in overtime. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to justify anything in particular here. But that game is a fantastic example showing how breaking a rule or not following a direction sometimes is the moral act to do. And that's if it contributes to the greater good of the world and the overall harmony of mankind. The players should have been the outcome's deciding factor. Who knows what though? That night, half the crowd wanted justice and the other half wanted blood, everyone wanted a direction to point their whole lot of frustrations in and no one really knew what was going on. Joe and I left in a flash on to more important matters to deal with, happy with not knowing the little details of the matter. What we did have though was a pretty good idea.
