Here are a few words that I would use to describe Sunday's basketball game between the fifth-seed Virginia and 12th-seed Wisconsin-Green Bay women's basketball teams: Devastating.
Anti-climactic.
Frustrating.
There's a rule that we follow at my house, and I'm not sure if it's something we made up or if it's a University-wide - or nation-wide or worldwide - tradition. We always blame bad refs on the University of North Carolina, even if the Tar Heels aren't involved in the game. Maybe it's because North Carolina basketball teams always get the good calls. Maybe we just don't like them very much. Anyway, we spent a good portion of the first half of Sunday's game chanting, "Carolina refs, Carolina refs," and so on. Rarely have I seen officiating as frustrating as what I saw during that half - and this year has been a fountain of bad reffing against the Cavaliers. It's not that there were many blatantly awful calls but rather that every call before halftime that seemed even remotely debatable ended up in favor of the Phoenix. And keep in mind that I'm someone who's usually very lenient with refs.
A series of bizarre, dubious fouls during the final nine minutes of the half resulted in an absolutely huge swing in control from Virginia to Green Bay.
Of course, senior guard Monica Wright took the blame - just as she has for the past four years - whenever Virginia had a misstep.
"The refs did the best job that they could," she said. "In my opinion, it shouldn't have come down to that. The entire game, they did a good job."
Really, though, I don't want to put too much heat on the officiating. As bewildering as the calls could seem to me, I recognize that I still found the game to be pretty emotional. And really, apart from the refs' calls, there are nine people who lost this game: the Cavaliers whose jerseys don't say Wright. I included this stat in yesterday's recap of the game but I feel it's worth repeating. Monica Wright's field goal percentage: 51.9 percent. The rest of the team's field goal percentage: 27.5 percent. One player was drawing a large percentage of the defense's attention, consistently getting double-teamed and yet making more than half of her shots - and the team still lost. There's not much you can do other than weep and thank Wright for four mind-meltingly awesome years of basketball.
Here are a few more noteworthy stats. Monica's scoring: 34 points. Everyone else's scoring: 33 points. Monica's free throw percentage: 83.3. Everyone else's free throw percentage: 58.8. That last stat is especially crucial because a few free throws would've countered pretty much every other flaw the Cavaliers displayed during Sunday's game. The Cavaliers missed four free throws during the last 90 seconds of play. You can't do that in a close game. Period.
Those last few minutes, actually, might've been the most interesting part of the game. Virginia seemed to remember - with about four minutes left in play - that, wait, the women's NCAA Tournament almost never has upsets and that a loss here would mean losing the team's all-time leading scorer forever.
So the Cavaliers came storming back with one incredible play after another. The Phoenix ended with 30 turnovers, and I could swear half of them came during the last four minutes. The refs' decision to make the closing minutes a collective "make-up call" for the first half gave Virginia a good shot at the comeback.
My favorite play of the game came with 1:21 left in the play. Green Bay's leading scorer, Celeste Hoewisch, who had been something of a kryptonite for the Cavs, took an inbounds pass, dribbled a quarter of the way down the court and picked the ball up because defenders were closing in and obviously were intending to foul. Hoewisch gripped the ball tightly and leaned toward the Virginia defender, who kept her space. Hoeswich fell into the Cavalier and then was called for the offensive foul! How does that even happen? It was the right call, too, I think.
The camera replayed it two or three times, each time lingering on her face to see her expression descend into rage as she realized the ref's call and realized she had just fouled out of the game. I know what she was thinking. "Carolina refs, Carolina refs .."
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