Referees use stop watch to declare James Webb's buzzer-beater too late

What a wild and wacky affair it was in Fort Collins on Wednesday night.

The Boise State Broncos and Colorado State Rams went toe-to-toe in an epic battle which took 50 minutes, not the usual 40, to settle.

And the biggest play of the game came at the end of the first overtime in which it looked like Boise State would walk away victorious.

With the game tied at 84-84, Colorado State had the ball and Antwan Scott shot a 3-pointer which missed. The long rebound sent John Gillon out past half court for an over-and-back penalty, giving the Broncos the ball.

The game stopped at that point, Boise wasn’t charged a timeout and Colorado State head coach Larry Eustachy was beside himself. So were the fans in attendance. With only .8 seconds to play, Boise got a free timeout, it seemed. But the referees wanted to make sure the time was correct.

So, they set up the ball at half court, Anthony Drmic fired it into James Webb, who magically made the running 3-pointer for the win. See here:

Boise State wins on a buzzer beater. .8 seconds left. #mwbb pic.twitter.com/sK8TQeov0w

— Rich (midnight blue 🌠and sunshine yellow ☀️) (@RichKurtzman) February 11, 2016

Official Tom O’Neil came over to press row to explain to everyone they used a stop watch to determine the clock did not start on time and it indeed took too long for Webb’s shot to leave his hands. So, the shot was waved off and we headed to double overtime.

In 2OT, the Rams stole all the momentum and won 97-94, as Boise made it interesting all the way.

After the game, John Gillon and Tiel Daniels talked of the second life they felt after the bucket was waved off:

Tiel Daniels and John Gillon on second life after that buzzer beater was called off. pic.twitter.com/5F4PuBmwzw

— Rich (midnight blue 🌠and sunshine yellow ☀️) (@RichKurtzman) February 11, 2016

“I knew when it banked and the clock went off it had to take longer than .8 seconds,” Rams head coach Larry Eustachy said. “I thought we lost. That’s the bottom line. I thought we lost and I said, ‘Here we go, same old story against Boise.’ And I was waiting for the refs to just run off and the game’s over.

“But, it took a lot of courage to figure out the right call,” Eustachy continued. “Literally, when he caught it to when he got it off it took 1.3 seconds. ESPN was able to do some sort of frame-by-frame of the exact 1.3 according to the officials.”

“It was a bizarre game,” Eustachy said.

Ain’t that the truth?

Hear Eustachy’s full opening statement here:

So, according to O’Neil, they called the shot off after using a stop watch to determine it took too long. But Eustachy said they used a frame-by-frame technique with the video.

Here’s the official statement from David Hall, head official of Mountain West Basketball:

“The protocol on any last-second shot, after the shot is made, you go to the monitor to review whether the shot was taken in time or not.  We followed the protocol, we went to the monitor and we reviewed whether the shot was taken in the 0.8 seconds that was on the game clock when the ball was inbounded. We did that and we noticed that the game clock was not started upon touch. We then used a stopwatch overlay from the monitor review system to determine when he touched it and then figure out how many tenths of a second it took from the time he touched the ball until the time he released the ball and whether he was able to get that shot off in that 0.8 seconds. After reviewing that several times we determined that the shot was late. It was not taken in that 0.8-second time frame, but actually closer to 1.2 or 1.3 time frame. As a result, the basket does not count.”

Clearly, by that reasoning, it all makes sense.

Now, someone will have to tell Boise State head coach Leon Rice, who had these comments after the game: