NCAA Admits Backcourt Violation Call Was Incorrect. Syracuse Fans Feel So Much Better.

So there you go, the back-court violation call on Scoop Jardine late in the Syracuse-Marquette game was officially deemed incorrect.

Alrighty.

It's a gesture from the NCAA but an empty one at best. Especially when NCAA officiating coordinator John Adams says the play was not reviewable anyway. Thanks, John Adams. So basically what you're saying is you're officials made a terrible call on what should be a very straight-forward basketball rule but even if it was evident at the time that it was a bad call, it couldn't have been overturned anyway because, well, who the hell knows.

Does Syracuse win the ballgame if this call doesn't get blown? We'll never know. It certainly killed the Orange's momentum at that moment and took the game out of their hands.

That said, it still doesn't excuse Scop Jardine for not knowing the backcourt rule either. Scoop said afterward that he knew it was a backcourt but if you look at his body-language when catching the ball, that's clearly not the case. I went over this in the game recap but suffice to say, Scoop's reaction and lack of basketball acumen played a part in why the violation was called.

The larger discussion here is what seems to be the alarming rate of important NCAA basketball games that are having their outcomes irrevocably altered by poor referring. The Rutgers-St. John's Big East game, the Syracuse-Marquette game and the Pitt-Butler game immediately come to mind and I know there's a dozen more. Was it always this bad? Probably. But every time it happens, it seems like the only thing the fans, teams and NCAA can do are shrug their shoulders and do nothing.

Bring on the robot referees, already.