Director of AAC refs confirms missed call late in Wichita State basketball’s UCF game
Craig Porter thought his job was done.
First, let’s set the stage: the Wichita State men’s basketball team was mounting a furious comeback, in desperate need of another defensive stop and in great position defending an out-of-bounds play underneath its own basket, trailing by two points and less than 30 seconds left on the game clock and four seconds left on the shot clock for UCF.
As the floating defender for the Shockers’ out-of-bounds defense, Porter’s responsibility is to help contain any cut to the strong side of the floor. And when UCF’s Brandon Mahan curled off a screen and darted to the strong-side corner, Porter did his job to jump out and deny the pass.
Except, a second later, Mahan wound up underneath the basket and finished an incredible scoop shot while being fouled for what became the victory-clinching, three-point play in UCF’s 71-66 win over Wichita State on Tuesday at Addition Financial Arena.
Porter, who fouled out on the play, was still wondering what exactly happened after the game.
“(Mahan) took two steps out of bounds and in my head, I know the rules, I didn’t think he could come back in and touch it,” Porter said. “I saw him take two steps out and then catch it. I thought it was about to be our ball.”
On Thursday, two days after the game, Porter’s hunch was proven correct. In response to a query from The Eagle, Mike Eades, the American Athletic Conference coordinator of men’s basketball officiating, confirmed “the officials should have called a violation on UCF” in a statement sent to The Eagle.
Eades cited Rule 9, Section 3, Article 1 in the NCAA Rules book, which states “A player who steps out of bounds under his own volition and then becomes the first player to touch the ball after returning to the playing court has committed a violation.”
Mahan appeared to step out on his own volition upon video replay of the sequence, as Porter and Dexter Dennis had Mahan trapped in the corner and Mahan took two steps out of bounds in an attempt to move around the defense to free himself up for a pass.
It was a quick bit of thinking that ultimately rewarded Mahan, who scored a team-high 19 points, but it was a play that should have been whistled dead by the officiating crew of Rob Rorke, Byron Jarrett and Todd Austin and given WSU another chance to potentially tie or take the lead with 26.4 seconds left.
“I’ve got to go back and look at that,” said WSU coach Isaac Brown, who yet to see the replay in his immediate postgame interview.
But for Porter, who knew what he saw, it was painful to be on the wrong end of a call that sealed his team’s fate. Not that an extra possession would have necessarily guaranteed WSU would have tied or taken the lead — Porter missed a potential game-tying shot just 30 seconds before — but Porter was confident the Shockers would have delivered.
“But in a place like this, an away game, you’re not going to get certain calls,” Porter said. “That’s how the whole game went. That’s just how it is.”
Wichita State coaches were also miffed by the play that preceded Mahan’s basket, another sequence in which the Shockers believe they should have been awarded the ball.
UCF’s Darius Perry drove baseline and hopped into a jump spot, appearing to pick up his pivot foot in the process of shuffling his feet, which would be a travel but is a non-reviewable play. What is reviewable is what came next when Perry loses control of the ball out of bounds.
The initial call on the floor was UCF ball, but replays from two different angles appear to show Perry’s fingertips last touching the ball before it falls out of bounds. The play was reviewed by Rorke, but ultimately the call on the floor was upheld and UCF was given a second chance that it converted on Mahan’s controversial three-point play.
“It was definitely a gut punch,” WSU star Tyson Etienne said.
It’s tempting to blame the controversial decisions for a major part in the crushing defeat, but the Shockers know they only have themselves to blame for digging a 16-point hole with countless defensive lapses and too many careless turnovers in the game.
“We didn’t win the game because we didn’t defend at a high level, we didn’t check out and we turned it over way too much in the first half,” Brown said. “We’ve just got to do a better job.”
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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