Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity confirmed yesterday that he “expressed concerns” to the SEC office regarding officiating in the final minutes of Tennessee’s 59-57 win in Athens on Tuesday night.
The Athens Banner-Herald reports that McGarity would not go into details about his discussions with the league office. “There’s basically a protocal that you do. You bring concerns to the SEC office and they deal with them. They’ll deal with them appropriately and that’s what you do. But you don’t discuss it publicly.”
And that’s how you avoid a fine.
Much has been made over the buzzer-beating shot that UT’s Brian Williams lofted over UGA’s Chris Barnes to win the game. Tennessee’s Bruce Pearl — who watched the game from his couch in Knoxville — said that that call would usually go against Williams… who appeared to go over Barnes’ back to bring in a rebound and then launch the game-winner. Pearl, however, did point out that Williams had both hands on the ball before any contact was made with Barnes which is why — in his mind — the call might not have been made. Barnes said after the game that “you’re not gonna get that type of call.” In addition, it appeared as though Barnes locked his hand onto Williams as he released his shot, too.
Verdict: A judgement call that would go one way one time, the other way another time.
The Dawgs appear to have a more legitimate beef regarding a Josh Bone jumper with about 2:25 left in the game. The Tennessee guard dropped the shot to give the Vols a 55-54 lead, but replays showed that Bone did not release the ball before the shot clock had hit zero. Unfortunately for Georgia, officials did not go back and check the replays.
“I knew the shot clock was going down, but I didn’t know it was at zero,” Bone told The Knoxville News Sentinel. “I saw the replay later and I was like ‘Ohhh!’ But it’s over now.”
It doesn’t sound like McGarity has reached Bone’s level of acceptance quite yet.
McGarity told The Macon Telegraph that there was no malfunction with the Stegeman Coliseum system that might explain the blown call.
“One could argue the horn could have been louder,” McGarity said. “But as loud as it gets in that arena… there were no arena deficiencies that aided in that decision.”
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