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Refs missed a goaltend, but West Virginia lost game, too

spt-120128-wvsyracuse

Mike Miller

Playing their third straight game without the services of starting center Fab Melo, Syracuse escaped with a 63-61 win over West Virginia at the Carrier Dome on Saturday afternoon.

What everyone is going to remember is the missed goaltending call, which is fair. The goaltend was as obvious as the no-call was atrocious:

And, as is the standard anytime there is a bad call that decides a game, the pitchwork-waving twitter revolutionists started complaining about how many games officials work and began calling for replay to be added for goaltending.

It was a bad call. It happens. West Virginia probably would have lost to Cincinnati had Kevin Jones been granted a timeout at the end of regulation last week.

What West Virginia should be more concerned about is their inability to take advantage of the opportunities granted them by Syracuse. The ‘Eers had 19 offensive rebounds, had a number of bad possessions down the stretch and missed two threes in the final ten seconds that would have won the game. One of those threes came after the game-saving “block”.

West Virginia got a bad break, yes, but they lost this game all on their own.