I watched the replay on the 5 second call (up 61-56 with under 4 to go). Absolutely HORRIBLE call. As soon as the ref gives the ball to Babb, he has his "counting arm" out for the first second - that wasn't even one second. As an official, you should give the ball to the player and mentally be counting "one thousand one" and the counting arm goes out at the end of the phrase. Next, his 3rd pass with his counting arm is much faster than the 2nd time he did it. The other egregious error was that he blows the whistle immediately after extending his counting arm on the 4th second. He had hardly started to count that final second. I timed that sequence and the total elapsed time (from Nick getting the ball to throwing it inbounds) was about 3.5 seconds. I know officiating is quite subjective and there are going to be blown calls, but that was just AWFUL officiating. It's stuff like that (and the end of the KSU game where the Wildcats get an extra possession because a ref who is at half court overturns a call - wrong call in fact - that happened on the baseline with his partner having a much better view) can totally change the course of the game. Fortunately we were able to counteract that terrible call last night - but it definitely helped TTU to get over the hump of their 5-7 pt deficits late in the game to eventually tie it. Just like in the KSU game - Wade scored a two pointer off that "free" possession. If that call is NOT made, at the worst, ISU is up 5, drains about 25 seconds off the clock, misses a shot & KSU's ability to make up the 5 point deficit is much more difficult. Instead, they are only down 3 with 30 more seconds on the game clock.
