The NCAA College Basketball Tournament is one of the most exciting and highly anticipated sporting events of the year. This year was no exception.
No one was surprised to see the number one ranked Duke University make its way to the championship game. The surprise contender and biggest story of this years tournament was the Wisconsin Badgers. Wisconsin had a great year, but their matchup against the undefeated University of Kentucky Wildcats in the Final Four had many people assuming their defeat.
After all, this was an historic Wildcat team that some believed could beat some NBA teams. This was also the same Kentucky Wildcats who defeated Wisconsin in the same Final Four round with a last second three point shot from Aaron Harrison.
The underdog win against Kentucky rallied a lot of fans behind the Wisconsin Badgers as they faced Duke in the National Championship game. History certainly favored the Duke Blue Devils. This was their ninth appearance in the NCAA Championship game under head coach Mike Krzyzewski, winning four of those previous appearances. Wisconsin has not been in the Championship game since their title run in 1941. There was a lot of excitement for Wisconsin residents and fans who rallied behind the underdog across the country.
However, despite a very close, exciting, hard-fought game, the story behind it all was the referees missing one huge call in favor of Duke that all but sealed their victory. In fact, there is a lot of arguments to say the officiating completely changed in the second half in favor of Duke. And it’s leaving a lot of fans bitter and a lot of conspiracy theorists reeling.
There doesn’t seem to be any excuse though. With the game on the line in with just under two minutes left, referees chose to review a close call that was awarded to Duke when players scrambled for a rebound that went out of bounds. The key part of this story is that they elected to review the play – meaning they saw the same thing that 28 million viewers got to see. At the most crucial point in the game, 28 million people saw the ball deflect off of the finger of Duke’s Justise Winslow while the refs somehow chose to say there was insufficient evidence to overturn the call.
It’s a deflating end to a long, exciting season of College Basketball. Duke fan certainly have a lot to be happy about while Wisconsin fans have to cling to hope, as all College Basketball fans do every off-season, that their University will be able to convince their star players to stay on another year and recruit some unbelievable talent in hopes at making a remarkable run to the NCAA Championship Game.
