Scheduling Mix-Up Leaves Teams Hunting for Referees

Two things stood out in the match between No. 2 Arkansas and South Alabama--there were no big complaints about the officials and there were almost no officials to complain about.

“Apparently, no officials were assigned to the game at all,” said Shea Hamilton, an Arkansas spokesman. The missing officials were to have come from South Alabama’s Sunbelt Conference.

At first, Hamilton said, school officials thought that perhaps the flight carrying the game officials was late. “We realized there weren’t any officials here after a while when it got to be about two minutes before tipoff,” he said.

That’s when Arkansas made some frantic calls to officials living in the area. Mike Fox, a Southwest Conference official, and Johnny Gabbard, who officiates local high school games, were contacted and worked the entire game, which started one hour late.

Arkansas (8-1) ran to a 101-91 victory.

Arkansas Coach Nolan Richardson said the substitute officials did a respectable job, especially since they were one person shy of the usual three-man squad and were calling an up-tempo game.

“They did as well as three officials could have done,” he said.