What would a Michigan State – Wisconsin game be without a crazy ending? It wasn’t quite as exciting as a Hail Mary, but it still had hearts pounding in East Lansing and Madison.
It looked like Ryan Evans had a last second buzzer-beater to force a 2nd OT, but after the replay, the officials ruled the basket no good because the clock had expired that was above the basket. Why did it look good live? Because the ESPN clock was synced with the other scoreboard clock. MSU would win 63-60, and Tom Izzo’s first win over Wisconsin and Bo Ryan in the Kohl Center.
For those wondering, the clock on top of the backboard is the time the officials go by. People like to throw the word controversial around, but nothing about what happened was. It was the right call, just confusing in the moment. The announcers were sure it was counted until they saw the replay with the two different times, and even they didn’t know which clock mattered.
“In the rulebook, it’s Rule 5 under, ‘Scoring and Timing Regulation, Section 7, Beginning and End of the Period,’ ” Driscoll said. “In games with a tenth of a second, game clock display where an official courtside monitor is used — which we had tonight — the reading of zeroes on the clock is to be used to determine whether a field goal (is good) before or after the expiration of time and the period.
“In the process, by rule, we go to the courtside monitor. Any shot near the expiration of time for the first or second half, we review. Upon our review, we determined that the ball remained in the hand of the Wisconsin player at the reading of zeroes.”
Bo Ryan was not happy about the call, but maybe he can talk to Brett Bielema about time left on the clock. Great 24 hour span for Sparty, but a rough one for the Badgers.
H/T: The Dagger and Guyism
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