UCLA basketball: Head of officiating backs controversial call

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John Adams, the head of NCAA basketball officiating, told ESPN’s Andy Katz that official Doug Simmons made the correct foul call on UCLA’s Malcolm Lee with seven-tenths of a second left in the Bruins’ 77-76 loss to No. 4 Kansas on Thursday in Lawrence, Kan.

‘The refs reacted properly,’ Adams told Katz. ‘The only argument you can make is whether or not it was a foul. It’s a foul. The Kansas kid has control of the ball. It’s incredibly unfortunate to end the game like that. But I’ve looked at the tape this morning and Doug called the foul like he’s supposed to.’

Simmons called Lee for a foul when the UCLA guard and Kansas’ Mario Little converged on a loose ball, awarding Little the free throw that gave the Jayhawks the winning point with less than a second to play.

Adams told Katz that officials cannot consider how much time is remaining when making a call.

‘It’s dangerous to read into every play in the game to see time, score and circumstance,’ Adams said. ‘We do not ask [officials] to play God. If you do that, then you’re asking them to play God. If the kid has possession and gets fouled, it’s a foul.

‘It’s incredibly unfortunate that it was at the expiration of time. In the old days you would walk away [because time appeared to have expired]. But in this time we have the video to check on the monitor to see if there was time left on the clock [and there was].’

--Ben Bolch