ASU unhappy about Rueck’s post-game comments

I guess we know what turns on blastingsand

I have one simple suggestion - something that the NCAA could do next season without a lot of effort and I suspect would make a huge difference within one year.

Keep stats on which refs make each call.

Here's what I see. Against Arizona, we had one very good ref (as I understand it, with WNBA experience) and two clunkers. A stat sheet would have shown that of the 35 fouls called in that game, that one ref had at least 2/3's of the calls.

Now, by itself that may or may not be a big deal - just like it may or may not mean anything when Ethan Thompson has 11 assists in one game. (Last night, it just meant that Utah couldn't keep Kylor away from the rim for alley-oops.) But over the course of the season it will become plain which refs are swallowing their whistles, which are calling certain things too tight, which can't count steps, which are too busy counting to three-seconds to call a push in the paint.

The conference and the NCAA don't even have to use the data. Refs that want to improve - and I think that almost all of them do want to be the best they can be - can use the data to work on their weaknesses. Just knowing that the data is being kept will likely make some of the whistle-swallowers a little quicker on the call.

The refs wouldn't like it, and I could see keeping the data out of public hands until the end of the season. But the first step to improve a process is to measure it. It's true in engineering, sports performance - pretty much every area in life other than sex - and there is no good reason not to apply it to officiating.

I was at an officiating camp years ago.  One of the evaluators was a Pac12 official.  He was telling a story how he was close to getting a D1 contract and late in a game he made an out of bounds call that wasn't his line.  At the end of the game the evaluator went down showed him the contract he was about to get and then ripped it up in front of him for making that error.  Another ref made a bad call in a Stanford game and noted he expected to be fired for such a bad call.  It's extremely tough to get into D1 officiating and there are a ton of eyes on you not only from fans but also conference evaluators.  At least 2 and sometimes 3 per game.

Not saying the refs are always right every game.  They're not.  I've never called a perfect game and never will, but I'll often use this in my pregame with players/coaches 'I'll never miss a call if you don't miss a shot'

The best fights I saw in high school were usually between two girls in the hall.  Vicious and mean!

Seems more like ASU got their hands slapped, along with the officials.  Sort of like the lawsuit where the plaintiff is asking for major money, and the defendant is found guilty, but the plaintiff is awarded the sum of $1.