Yo, Tom — a certain buzz-cutted mutual friend of ours on the online sports desk says you’re something of a rules stickler. At the end of the Dayton game, the refs went to the scorer’s table and reversed themselves on the called shot clock violation. I don’t have a 2007-8 rulebook, but in the 2006 book, it sure seems to say that they didn’t have the right to make that ruling. (Specifically, shot clock violations are not listed amont “correctable errors.”

In general, those guys were abominable to begin with. But it would be interesting to see if they actually made up a rule on the spot, and what the consequences are if they’re caught.

According to the 2007 rule book, Rule 2, Section 5, paragraph h, regarding replays, it can be used for “a determination based on the judgment of the official that the shot clock failed to properly start, stop, set or reset or that the shot clock has malfunctioned.” So this would fall under the provision of not resetting, so it was an allowable review.

Even though it wasn’t a televised game, the refs were able to review the in-house feed.

The refs had another long discussion in the closing minute about a Dayton player entering the game. Gregory was trying to put Huelsman in game and ref Ray Perone ruled he couldn’t come in because he went to the scorer’s table after the second horn. (At least that’s what I thought he was saying.) Gregory successfully got him into the game, arguing, from what I could tell, that Huelsman was already in the game. Why he would then be going to the scorer’s table is a mystery to me. The refs then allowed Majerus to sub Danny Brown for Barry Eberhardt. (If I’m reading my notes right.) Looking back at the play by play, that exchange came at a point where Gregory called two time outs three seconds apart. At 38 seconds, Little went in for Huelsman, then at 35 seconds, Huelsman went back in. That’s legal, since time ran off the clock, but the impression I got, since the ref was standing right in front of me, was that Perone waved off the sub because it was after the horn. Maybe that was an incorrect interpretation on my part.

Gregory wouldn’t bit when I asked him about the shot clock miscue after the game, no doubt fearing a fine from the league office. He said, more or less, hey, I made a thousand mistakes in the game, they’re entitled to a few.

Years ago, I used to cover the West Coast Conference, and there was a saying in the league: “It’s Saturday night in the WCC.” That league was one of the few - I think the Ivy is the only other — to play games on Friday nights. So on Fridays, the WCC would get the pick of refs, because guys were looking to work games and pick up some cash. You might get two guys who had worked Final Fours on a Friday night game in the WCC. But on Saturdays, when everyone was playing, the WCC paid less than the Pac-10, Big West, Mountain West, or WAC. So every decent ref west of the Rockies had a better place to be on Saturday nights. So on Saturday nights in the WCC, anything could happen. I saw more atrocious refereeing on those nights than you could see in a million A-10 games. I guess this is my way of saying that after that, everyone looks like Mendy Rudolph to me.

OK, so part 1 says it was a reviewable call. Part 2, then, is that the sequence, if I recall correctly, was that the shot missed, Luke grabbed or tried to grab it, and it was stripped by a Dayton player, who went to the basket, shot and missed, and the Bills got the rebound sometime around the time the guy blew his whistle.

If the shot clock was supposed to reset and didn’t, it was an inadvertent whistle. Did the Dayton player have possession when the ball when the whistle blew? (If so, it was an unbelievable stroke of luck, because only a little over a second went off the clock between his rebound and his shot.)

If the shot had left his hand, it’s at worst no one’s possession (arrow pointed to SLU) and at worst SLU’s possession (I’m pretty sure they got the rebound).

The sequence, as I recall it, is that Roberts misses, bodies pile on top of each other, chaos reigns, and the ball comes to a Dayton player, who has it in his possession when the shot clock buzzer goes off and the refs blow the whistle. The guy might have been trying to put up a shot when the horn blew, but if he did, I don’t think he did it until the horn started to sound and in that case, the refs would rule he was doing that because of the timing mistake. Since the Dayton player had possession at the time the shot clock went off, once the refs determined the horn shouldn’t sounded — which is what they based blowing the whistle on — it was Dayton’s ball. If SLU had clearly gotten the rebound - if there had been a clear change of possession — the refs would not have blown the whistle for a shot clock violation and play would have continued. (Though they could go either way on that one.) So the only way it was going to be SLU’s ball was if the ball missed the rim. Which it apparently didn’t.

There was a nine-plus-second difference between the game clock and shot clock on that last possession. (When Dayton called time with 39.4 seconds left, the shot clock said 30; when they called time with 35.2 seconds, the shot clock said 26.) The refs reset the clock to 9.9, which presumably was the time on the game clock when the shot clock light went off. When the refs blew the whistle, the clock had stopped at 7.9 seconds.

I guess what I’m saying is I don’t think SLU got jobbed. (Bob Ramsey may disagree.) Had the clock been reset — or in this case, turned off — after Roberts’ miss, Dayton would have had the ball. Whoever finally got the rebound might still have forced up the same shot, but we’ll never know.

By the way, the Atlantic 10’s supervisor of officials was on hand at the game on Saturday. He was sitting in the front row right behind me.