Friday, October 10, 2008 Talk back: Painful experience By Edmond Navarro USJ-R Media Center
LOSING a championship series is a painful experience. That is because you see all your hard work just going down the drain. On this note, I can understand how terribly dejected the University of San Jose-Recoletos Jaguars are after that defeat at the hands of the University of the Visayas Green Lancers in Game 4.
But this painful plight is further aggravated by the manner which the Jaguars lost to the Green Lancers the other night. Actually, I don’t think the Green Lancers “won” that game. It was given to them by the referees.
Any intelligent and non-partisan audience in that full-packed Cebu Coliseum last Wednesday night could conclude that officiating in that game was very poor. I, for one, say that it was the worst officiating I had ever seen in a basketball game.
Worst in the sense that there were minor contacts which were called by referees when they should have let it go. In a championship game, the referees normally don’t call a foul on minor contacts or on situations not part or away from the play.
But such was not the case as far as that game is concerned. UV’s Greg Slaughter was the clear favorite to get the calls. There was even one stretch in the third period of that game when the referees called five straight fouls against the Jaguars, all on Slaughter’s defense. Another was when Slaughter was called with a flagrant foul after kicking a fallen Mannie Gabas on the head but this was negated when USJ-R’s Jan Malinao earned a technical for a slight nudge on Slaughter’s back in retaliation of Slaughter’s attack on Gabas.
Considering the degree of the two offenses, any intelligent basketball fan knows that the decision was not fair. Any basketball aficionado knows that a player who avoids contact or running into the defense will no way be called for an offensive foul. To the demise of their morale, the Jaguars got the raw end of the calls.
I pity those students in the coliseum, who are still starting to know basketball, because the referees did not teach them how the game is supposed to be played. And I pity the league and the Cesafi officials because these referees are slowly, but surely, making a dent on the league’s integrity.
