Virginia’s Controversial Win over Auburn
Virginia basketball advances to their first ever NCAA championship game with a stunning win over Auburn. The number 1 ranked Cavaliers beat the number 5 ranked Auburn on an expired clock. With 1.5 seconds to go in the game, Virginia trailed by when in-bounding the ball. On the in-bound play, Virginia guard Kyle Guy received the pass and immediately turned around to shoot a three pointer from the corner. As the shot bounced off the rim, Auburn fans celebrated.
While celebrations began, referees gathered to determine whether there was a shooting foul on Auburn’s Bryce Brown. Brown jumped up to contest the shot, but had clipped Guy while in the shooting motions, before the shot had gotten off.
The above pictures show Brown hitting Guy while in the shooting motion. It was called a shooting foul.
As Guy was fouled on a three point shot, he received three free throw attempts, while trailing by two points. Guy made the first two free throws, then two timeouts were called by each team. Guy got the line for the last free throw and ….. sank it. Virginia had a one point lead with .4 seconds left and won the game. Virginia won 63-62.
Fans of Auburn were outraged about the call, as it was a lighter shooting foul, but indeed a shooting foul. Fans of Auburn were later even more outraged as they found out about a missed call just seconds before where Virginia’s Ty Jerome committed a double dribble, which would have given Auburn the ball, with the lead, and avoiding a shooting foul as a whole.
To be fair it’s also a foul with that jersey grab before the double dribble pic.twitter.com/r5ijjbUsHQ
— Eric Rosenthal (@ericsports) April 7, 2019
As you can see in the video, Jerome loses the ball without the Auburn defender touching it. Jerome then picks the ball back up with two hands and continues to dribble onward. This is a double dribble play, a violation which causes a change-of-possession. Auburn should have been given the ball.
This double dribble play was hard to catch for any basketball expert. In live action, a rational referee or player would have assumed that Auburn’s defender caused the ball to be knocked loose. As it is also a simple mishap in ball handling, it is easy to brush off the possibility of it being a double dribble. Nearly all fans, players, coaches, commentators, and viewers missed the double dribble, creating an argument that it was so insignificant that it should not be called in such a high stakes game. If referees had seen it, the double dribble should have been called. If not, the play should continue and the game should have ended the way it did.\
Regardless of arguing over a call/ non-call Virginia will be playing on Monday night in the championship game. The Cavaliers will be facing off against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Texas Tech beat Michigan State later Saturday evening 61-51. Although the Spartans made a lat push to come within one point of the Red Raiders, Texas Tech pulled away to win by 10. Texas Tech will also be making their first appearance in a championship game.
The championship game is set for Monday night, April 8 at 9:20 ET. Be there to watch two teams battle it out for the title, with one team waiting to be crowned the 2019 National Champions.
