Arkansas beat Seton Hall in a first-round NCAA tournament game on Friday, 77-71. The last minute was a weird one, punctuated by an unfortunate Pirate travel and a questionable flagrant foul call against Seton Hall junior Desi Rodriguez.
Seton Hall’s season is over because of a questionable foul call and a really dumb travel
Everything went way south in the last minute.
Seton Hall had its chances to win, but a mental error and a potential officiating flop essentially snuffed them out. Here’s what happened.
1. The unfortunate travel.
Arkansas’ lead was 72-71 with under a minute left, but Seton Hall had the ball and a chance to go ahead. At that point, the Razorbacks decided to turn up the heat. Pirates guard Khadeen Carrington had the ball, and two Hogs converged on him at once after a pick-and-roll attempt didn’t produce anything. Carrington made a mistake.
Carrington picked up his dribble, then ran in a partial circle like an NFL running back trying to avoid tacklers. It was the most obvious travel you could ever see, and the ball went back to Arkansas, which was still leading by a point.
Carrington is a junior and one of Seton Hall’s best players. That he’d make a mental error of this magnitude in a spot like this is pretty surprising. He doesn’t, in general, have a turnover problem, and he could’ve made the pass he made without walking.
2. The questionable foul call.
Carrington’s turnover meant Seton Hall would have to foul intentionally, send Arkansas to the free-throw line, and hope to get the ball back down just two or three points. The Pirates tried to do that, but the result was crippling.
While Arkansas’ Jaylen Barford dribbled toward the basket, a running Rodriguez reached out for what looked like a standard floor foul. But Rodriguez was coming in a little bit hot, and the contact included a slight trip that sent Barford tumbling to the hardwood. The play appeared more violent than most late-game fouls do.
At first, Rodriguez’s contact with Barford was ruled a common foul. Officials reviewed the tape, however, and made a change: Instead of being ruled a common foul, Rodriguez was hit with a flagrant 1 call. Arkansas would get two foul shots and possession afterward.
A common foul would’ve meant a one-and-one, where if Bradford had missed his first free throw, Seton Hall could’ve rebounded it. Even if he were to make both, Seton Hall would have been positioned to take the ball down three with 18 seconds left.
Instead, Barford made his two free throws, and because the Hogs got to keep possession, Seton Hall had to foul Arkansas again. Though this time the Hogs missed a one-and-one front end, they got an offensive rebound. From there: foul, free throws, game over.
Turner analyst Chris Webber, on the game broadcast, made the case that it was wrong to call a foul like that at that point in the game. Maybe so, but let’s look at it.
Was this a bad call? There’s a fair case both ways.
Let’s go to the NCAA’s rulebook definition of a flagrant 1, which is less severe than a flagrant 2 only because it doesn’t carry an automatic ejection:
A flagrant 1 personal foul is a personal foul that is deemed excessive in nature and/or unnecessary, but is not based solely on the severity of the act. Examples include, but are not limited to:
1. Causing excessive contact with an opponent;
2. Contact that is not a legitimate attempt to play the ball or player, specifically designed to stop or keep the clock from starting;
3. Pushing or holding a player from behind to prevent a score;
4. Fouling a player clearly away from the ball who is not directly involved with the play, specifically designed to stop or keep the clock from starting; and
5. Contact with a player making a throw-in.
6. Illegal contact caused by swinging of an elbow that is deemed excessive or unnecessary but does not rise to the level of a flagrant 2 personal foul.
Rodriguez didn’t violate anything in No. 3 through 6.
So there are two potential issues here. One’s about whether Rodriguez’s contact was “excessive,” which is a broad term.
In fact, it’s such a broad term that it’s probably impossible to ever convict the officiating crew of definitely getting the call wrong. Rodriguez was moving quickly, and Barford did go down hard. But part of Barford’s fall was because his leg got caught on Rodriguez’s and he tripped, and of course Rodriguez was running hard. That’s sports. Barford might have dramatized his fall, and that’s sports, too.
NCAA National Coordinator of Men’s Basketball Officiating J.D. Collins defended the crew’s decision to grade the foul a flagrant 1. He cited this part of the rule:
Contact that is not a legitimate attempt to play the ball or player, specifically designed to stop or keep the clock from starting
“It’s a really difficult situation,” Collins said. “The players are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. The referees have to officiate the play for its own merits, and that makes a really difficult situation.”
Collins said the play was ruled a common foul at first because officials knew they’d be able to review at at the monitor later. And they did.
“When a player puts two hands on the back and doesn’t make any attempt to play the ball or the player, get in front of him, it’s an F1 foul,” he said.
We’ll never firm up that Seton Hall got screwed here.
But if Rodriguez hadn’t been called for a flagrant 1, no Arkansas fan would’ve thought to argue about it. The fact is that he was called for it, and Seton Hall fans will be angry about it forever.
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