Did Tennessee Get Screwed By The Timekeepers At End Of Elite Eight Game?

As time ticked down late in Michigan State’s 70-69 victory over Tennesseee, there might--might--have been some dodgy timekeeping.

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↵That’s J.P. Prince, definitely fouling Raymar Morgan. Prince complained about the call, but come on, he was climbing on Morgan. If that wasn’t a foul, there are no such things as fouls. Fortunately, there are such things as fouls, and the referee has called this foul. His arm is already all the way up as well. And there’s 2.2 seconds showing on the clock here; the whistle blew a tenth of a second earlier.

↵Problem: there were only 1.8 seconds left when Morgan was attempting his free throws. That’s probably half a second Tennessee would have liked to have.

↵Now, Spartan partisans (Spartisans? Spartisans, yes) will be happy to point out that only 0.2 seconds ticked off on the rebound, which is a charitable interpretation of how long it takes to gather a rebound and call timeout. But that at least stood up to the scrutiny of replay, whereas no such official review took place on the foul call.

↵Now, whether that half a second would have had any effect on the endgame is, of course, debatable. Maybe Bruce Pearl doesn’t draw anything up differently. Maybe J.P. Prince still fumbles the ball as he gathers it and hoists a hopelessly short line drive with 0.7 seconds left instead of 0.2. Tennessee fans would probably argue that it’d have been nice to find out.