Kent St. 80, Butler 76

What a wild game! Butler gave Kent State all it could handle this afternoon, although Butler had more than a little help from the officials. Still, the Flashes overcame the Bulldogs and the zebras to win a thriller in overtime.

The two teams played a competitive if sloppy first half and were knotted up at 31-31 at halftime. Butler dominated most of the second half, but after trailing by as much as nine points, Kent State rallied and sent the game into overtime when DeAndre Haynes drained a three-pointer with 10 seconds left.

Kent State grabbed the lead in overtime and kept it. Jay Youngblood hit a big three pointer and followed it with another bucket, Kent State played tough defense, and Butler finally missed a couple of three point shots. ( On paper, Butler was nothing special from three point land (10-25), but ask anybody who was at the MAC Center, and they'll tell you that Butler seemed to nail long-distance threes whenever Kent State started to rally.) The Flashes put Butler in a position where they had to foul, and then iced the game with free throws, going 6 for 8 from the line during OT.

The referees were godawful. There are lots of ways referees can do a bad job -- overofficiate, underofficiate, call the game one way for 38 minutes, and then call it differently for the last two minutes, etc. But these officials did the worst thing a crew can do: They called the game one way at the Butler end of the court, and another at the Kent State end.

For example, Butler had a wide body forward named Brian Ligon who spent the entire day throwing elbows, and ended up with only two personal fouls. In contrast, I don't think a Kent State player's forearm went up all day without a whistle being blown. What was a charge when Butler had the ball was a blocking foul when Kent State was in possession. Lots of calls were made away from the ball at the Kent State end, but none at Butler's end, despite equally physical play underneath both baskets.

In short, I haven't seen officiating this bad since the Super Bowl.

Still, all things considered, it was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Here's a link to the box score and other game information, if you're interested.