SMU's season ends in heartbreak with controversial goaltending call

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Site administrators and NCAA representatives clustered outside the officials’ locker room at the Yum! Center, moments after the SMU-UCLA game ended in raging controversy.

Every face was grim. This was a situation nobody wanted.

Across the hall, two Mustangs and coach Larry Brown were ushered out of a nearby locker room to go to the postgame press conference and describe the heartbreak of a 60-59 loss. It was decided on a dubious goaltending call of a desperate Bryce Alford 3-pointer that was deflected – short of the rim, and seemingly without a chance of going in – by SMU center Yanick Moreira.

After the players walked past, the door to the officials’ room swung open.

I went inside as the U.S. Basketball Writers Association's designated pool reporter for this site. TruTV sideline reporter Allie LaForce went in as well. Judy MacLeod, the on-site member of the Division I Basketball Committee and associate commissioner of Conference USA, also was in the room.

The mood was somber. The only noise was a TV on the wall that was quickly muted.

My job was to represent all media here in event of a controversial call and to gather comment from the officials, who do not otherwise do postgame interviews. Crew chief Antinio Petty and colleagues Sean Hull and Larry Spaulding were all present.

With the rulebook in hand, Petty cited rule 9.3.a, 1 and 2, which is goaltending. It is not a reviewable call. He passed the book to Hull to read the rule to me.

“Goaltending occurs when a defensive player touches the ball during a field-goal try and each of the following conditions is met:

“1. The ball is on its downward flight; and
“2. The ball is above the level of the ring and has the possibility, while in flight, of entering the basket and is not touching the cylinder.”

And that was that. Petty made a game-deciding call that looked wrong to a great many people. UCLA – a No. 11 seed trying to salvage an undistinguished season – moves on to play Cinderella UAB, which upset No. 3 seed Iowa State. Now the Bruins have a very real chance to make the Sweet 16 of a tournament many people thought they shouldn’t even be invited to attend.

And No. 6 seed SMU, which trailed by 10 at the 14:54 mark and led by nine 10 minutes later, goes home.

The officials were professional and courteous. And very serious. A game full of split-second decisions boiled down to one fateful call. They realized the gravity of that call – an instantaneous whistle blast with 10.9 seconds left that meant the difference between survive-and-advance and one-and-done.

Petty, positioned near the UCLA bench, had been the official who made the call. Spaulding was on the opposite side of the floor, also facing the basket. Hull was underneath.

After Moreira tipped the ball, Petty turned and signaled a basket. UCLA coach Steve Alford quickly signaled “basket good” as well on the bench. The officials went briefly to the monitor – not to review the call, but to verify that it was a 3-point shot.

Then play resumed, SMU missed two shots, and the game was over.

And the recriminations began.

While seemingly the entire nation was reviewing the play and casting blame, the Mustangs were remarkably dignified in defeat.

In an otherwise silent locker room, Moreira gracefully answered every question, steadfastly putting the blame on himself. His last college game had ended in calamity, but he handled it far better than many of us would have.

“I think I hit the rim first,” said Moreira, a 6-foot-11 native of Angola. “I can’t blame it on the referee. I should have let the ball hit the rim first and then got the ball. If they call goaltend, it’s a goaltend. You can’t argue with the referee.”

In America, arguing with the referee is a bloodsport – a universal blame game played by fans of every team. Incredible energy is expended on message boards, talk radio and social media rehashing every injustice – real and perceived.

Basketball, arguably the hardest sport to officiate because of its speed and the sheer number of calls, so often finds itself the target. Sometimes March Madness becomes consumed by ref-bashing.

Yet here was a team with a legitimate reason to declare robbery, and the Mustangs refused to do so.

“You don’t look at one play,” legendary coach Larry Brown said. “We had our chances to win, and it didn’t happen. I’m sick for those kids.”

Moreira, whose improved play from last year was a major reason why the Mustangs went 27-7 and won the American Athletic Conference, will play professionally somewhere. But he wasn’t ready to let go of his last game quite yet.

“I’m going to watch [the goaltending call] now,” he said, after pulling off his socks and shoes. “... Until I get another chance to play again, it’s going to be hard. This is my last time with an SMU jersey on.

“I don’t think we deserve to go out like this.”

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