Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch a basketball game with referees who learned their craft in a hospital for the criminally insane?

Me neither but I'm pretty sure that's what I saw last night.

Let me give you some perspective; I've been married to a basketball coach for over thirty years. 

I'm very proud of Jay's career.  He's a great coach.  I think he's the best coach on earth but I accept that I may be biased because I really like him and I admit I know nothing about the game. 

My point here is that although I'm married to a coach, I'm not a 'Coach's Wife'.  I make no pretense that I either understand or care at all about the game.  Thirty two years of watching my husband's and all four of my kid's games, (for a few years there, I went to six or seven games a week) I still don't understand what I'm watching.  It took me ten years to figure out the difference between double dribbling and traveling.  I still can't tell if I'm looking at a zone or man defense.  I'm not even sure what those terms mean but I hear them a lot.  Apparently there's such a thing as an illegal screen but I couldn't tell you what that is if you waterboarded me.  

Because I don't care.

My life is quite full enough without bothering to learn something as inane as the rules of basketball.

 My concern for Jay's win/loss record begins and ends with how happy he'll be when he gets home.  I don't care one way or the other about championships.  Trophies, a week after the event, are just more crap I have to dust.

But the games are fun.  I may not understand the rules or intricacies of the sport but I can appreciate the athleticism, power, beauty and emotion of trying to win.  I get caught up in the moment and cheer myself hoarse every game even though I don't give it another thought once it's over.  

Here's what I have learned from more than thirty years in the bleachers;

Any team can beat any other team on any given night.  

Winning is a lot more fun than losing but the next day you still have to live your life.

 I've seen way too much basketball to be comfortable with less than a thirty point lead with more than two minutes left in a game.  I've seen a team come from seven points back to win  by scoring ten points in the last three seconds.  I've seen Hail Mary shots still in the air when the buzzer sounds, sink for three and win the game.  I've seen teams that were so hot they couldn't miss in the first half go so cold they couldn't make a layup in the second.  I've seen players who can make free throws in their sleep miss one, two and three in a row with championships hanging in the balance.  I've seen championships won on the tip in of a missed free throw as the last second of the season ticks off the clock.

I thought I'd seen it all.  Until last night.

Referees always suck so I waste no time worrying about them.  With the exception of the 1972 Olympic final, I don't believe the officials ever decide a game.  Making your free throws is  what decides a game.

I don't think the officials decided last night's game.  Two very good teams faced off and played a  close and exciting game that was within our reach until the last minute of play.  We missed too many free throws.

But last night was by far the weirdest game I've ever seen.

Again, some background; Jay's teams are notoriously well disciplined.  His teams control themselves.  They do not fight.  They do not bait the refs.  They do not lip off.  On the rare occasion when two players on the court get to shoving, our bench stays put.  They do not rush the court to defend a team mate, they let the officials restore order and do not make a problem worse.  In short, they are trained not to attract technical fouls.  

The technical foul is a very effective way for the officials to prevent coaches and players from being abusive or obnoxious.  They can call T's at their discretion, for anything they feel is out of hand, as a way to maintain control of the game.  The call carries with it a severe penalty; the opposition gets to shoot uncontested free throws and keep possession of the ball.  No coach wants to cost his team that much so the threat of T's is a real deterrent to bad bench behavior, including abusive language.

Our teams do not get technical fouls.

We got four called on us last night.

Four.

Two T's called on a coach means expulsion from the bench, the gym and the building.  It means a mandatory suspension from the next game as well.  So one T is usually all it takes to get a coach to sit down and shut up.  When Jay was very young he was wild and firey but he was only ejected from a game once and that was twenty six years ago.  He hasn't gotten T'd up at all since before Josie was born.

Last night he got two.

In the first four minutes of the game.

It happened so fast I didn't realize he'd gotten two T's until he walked out the door.

Before the half was over, one of our players had been T'd up as well.

And one of our fans had been ejected from the game.

Shortly after the second half started, Ron (Jay's right hand man, who took the reins after Jay's exit) got T'd up.  I've never seen Ron get a T.  Not in twenty one seasons.

By now you must be thinking that the game last night was a blood bath; a free for all; an Occupy Wall street riot.

It wasn't.

It was an example of how basketball looks when the officials are completely nuts. 

There's no bad blood between the two programs, no history of fighting or grudges. Both teams played well, played hard, had flashes of brilliance and moments of butterfingers.  Rochester is a really good team.  We only beat them by three early in the season and they didn't need bad officiating to beat us last night.  

In fact, they seemed as unnerved by the Insane Clown Posse school of refereeing last night as we were.

I've seen dirty games.  I've seen cheap shots and vicious fouls and games where tension and violence between rival teams brewed beneath the surface until fights broke out or the refs were able to get a lid on it and cool things down.  I've been at games where teams had to be escorted from the gym with police protection.

Last night was the first time I ever saw a case where both teams and all the fans wanted police protection from the officials.

Jay got T'd up for suggesting (loudly) that the official's job is to protect the shooter.

Ben got ejected from the gym for yelling "You're terrible!"

That's all I heard and I was sitting right in front of him. I've known been since he was a little kid and I've been at games when he may have deserved to be asked to leave.  He has a loud voice and it does carry and when he was a teenager and very young adult, he demonstrated a colorful vocabulary. But he's a grown man now.  He had his four year old daughter with him, he wasn't screaming profanities.  If a fan can't yell 'you're terrible' at the refs after a bad call, what's the point of going to the game?  He got no warning to keep it civil. No second chance to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of the dangerously touchy  extremely sensitive officials. The security guard seemed as embarrassed by the situation as Ben was and would've been satisfied with a warning for him to dial down the volume but the refs declared that the game would not resume until Ben (and his darling daughter) had been removed from the building.

For "You're terrible."

These refs were so bad it went from outrageous to funny to a little bit scary.  I haven't seen so many traveling calls since my kids graduated from the KCYO.  I don't remember another game where both teams were in the double bonus in the first half.  There were so many whistles the first half took an hour to play.  The second half was no better.  They actually called one of our guys for 'delay of game'.  First of all, they made that call as play occurred so I have no idea what it was supposed to mean, second of all, there's no such call. 

I don't even know what Ron got T'd up for and it doesn't even matter!  By that point of the game, everyone in the gym, players, fans and coaches alike, were so appalled no one would've been surprised if the ref had punched someone!

It's the first game I've ever seen in which the officials were 100% successful in making the entire game about them.

At this point, I'd love to be able to say that the real referees were later found bound and gagged in a closet of the Sal and three escaped lunatics had officiated the game.  But this is real life and real life doesn't always make sense.

Just like basketball.