UCLA Fans Seeing Crimson After Referees Blow Game

It is unconscionable, with three highly trained officials, NCAA staff, and media with access to videotape replay, that what occurred in Alabama on March 15 was possible. The injustice is inexcusable. The mental anguish to UCLA players and staff is immeasurable. The NCAA’s gesture to placate UCLA by banning the officials from the tournament is flaccid.

This is not a statement of the officials’ inadequacy, but a reflection on the NCAA as the governing body to ensure a quality tournament with all that it entails for both men and women, equally. Certainly, if the UCLA men’s team were in a similar situation this travesty would not have come to fruition. The best officials for the tournament should not be separated by gender boundaries. I believe that in 1972 a law was passed to alleviate gender discrimination in sport. Maybe it’s time for the NCAA to revisit Title IX.

MELANIE HORN

Long Beach

(Former UCLA player)

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On the same day of the UCLA women’s fiasco, Voshon Leonard of the visiting Miami Heat won a game with 1.1 seconds left on a shot that was first declared after the buzzer, and then overturned (correctly, I might add) by officials in Orlando, prompting Chuck Daly to complain that his home timekeeper wasn’t giving his team the advantage. Why should UCLA’s women suffer because somebody took it upon themselves to give Alabama a win it did not deserve? This type of cheating does not belong in sports.

JOSHUA SINGER

Valley Village

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Contrary to popular belief, Alabama’s win over UCLA in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament had nothing to do with home-court advantage or a friendly timekeeper. Everything pointed to a time-space phenomenon. The nation’s top scientists and the producers of “X-Files” must all be rushing to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to examine Earth’s only recorded time-space anomaly at a basketball court where, last Sunday, time traveled at a slower pace while humans bolted at the speed of light.

How else could one explain the full-court buzzer-beating shot by Alabama in 0.8 of a second, or the lightning-quick disappearance of game officials at the final buzzer?

JASON HSING

San Gabriel

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I can hardly wait for the spring track season. We will see the first 100-yard dash in under 7 seconds. The sprinter will be from Alabama. We all know who the person in charge of the stopwatch will be.

ROBERT KAPCHE

Fountain Valley

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Let me see if I’ve got this straight: The NCAA agrees that the officials were wrong, and that Alabama did not score within the final .8 of a second. Yet, they are letting the result stand, so that Alabama advances and UCLA is done.

That’s kind of like the Supreme Court issuing an opinion that says the lower court was wrong, but we’re not going to reverse the judgment.

If the NCAA cannot stand up and overrule officials who were clearly and demonstrably wrong on a play that knocked the real winner out of the tournament, then the NCAA has no business running tournaments.

JOEL GROSSMAN

Los Angeles

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Alabama’s coach was quoted as saying: “I will not say our kids did not deserve to win that game. I will take that to my grave with me.” Gee, Coach, what a great message to send to your athletes; all that matters is winning, even if you have to cheat on national TV to do it. This, I’m sad to say, is the state of athletics today. Sportsmanship and fair play are dead.

SCOTT W. BLEK

Glendale

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I have a simple question for those who run the NCAA asylum:

How is it so easy for you to strip the University of Colorado of football victories (for using an ineligible player) earned five months ago, yet impossible for you to rectify a grievous mistake made only minutes ago?

NCAA? Must stand for Nobody Cares About Anything.

JACK LEENER

Palm Desert

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Apparently, down south, NCAA means No Chance Against Alabama.

STAN KAPLAN

Garden Grove

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NCAA stands for Never Consistent About Anything.

ARTHUR FLEISHER

Northridge

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Have we all gone bananas? First the Nykesha Sales record-setting embarrassment, followed by the last-second (or three) buzzer-beater debacle in Alabama. All this, plus the overwhelming lack of interest in the women’s game and still I am force-fed this information on the front of the sports section when it used to be buried on Page 10. So what has changed? A larger fan base? No way. Political correctness? Of course.

If you want to pretend sports fans are interested in women’s basketball, then go ahead and keep covering it the way you are, but you know what? Nobody cares.

TIM O’BRIEN

Encino