Why March Madness just doesn't mean that much to me

As someone who enjoys athletic competition, I get caught up in a lot of events, especially when I have a reason to root for a team, even if it's not my favorite game. I'm thinking specifically of basketball, a game that I continue to lose more and more interest in.

What triggered this post is that in a rarity, my alma mater high school is/was ranked in the top ten in Minnesota. Tonight, they had a chance to go to the state tournament, but lost in OT in the regional final.

I saw the game-winning basket on the news tonight. The winning team's player dished the ball off to a teammate, who laid it in. In dishing it off, however, he also plowed over a well-positioned defender. After viewing and reviewing the play several times, thanks to DVR technology, I know a few things:

1) It was a textbook charge that went uncalled
2) It happened right in front of the official
3) My blood pressure went up a bit

Basketball is as fun a game to play as any for me, except perhaps ice hockey. But it's terribly frustrating to watch, because of the officiating. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with basketball officials as a whole; rather, the game itself simply makes for what seems to be a flip-a-coin process in deciding when to call fouls. Still, so often it seems that the officials are too afraid to make the calls that so clearly happen right in front of them, especially in the final minute.

"Let them play!" the non-thinkers say.

"No, make them play, so that it's a fair result," I say.

Yes, ice hockey needs to call boarding more strictly, and call a penalty a penalty even late in the 3rd period and overtime.

Yes, baseball umpires make up their own strike zones.

And yes, football officials seem to have trouble with holding and interference calls, to name a couple.

Yet none of them seem so random as in the calling and non-calling of basketball fouls. I'm sure you could point to a time earlier in the game where my school got away with something, and the calls probably do typically even out. But it's all about the integrity of the game, and a game that over the years has required me to invest a couple hours or more of my time, only to be decided by something so random as to whether an official decides to blow a whistle or not, has very little credibility with me. I also find it ironic that basketball officials are the least tolerant of criticism, "T-ing up" people if they look at them funny.

As much as anything, this is why I hope my two youngest boys don't follow their brother's footsteps by quitting hockey and switching to basketball. I'll put up with an idiotic parent cheering on his imbecilic son who just cross-checked my boy with no call from the ref. But I can't handle endings like I saw tonight.