Unlike some of you here, I’m not a conspiracy theorist when it comes to SEC officiating.
Unless we’re talking about a conspiracy of idiocy. If that’s the case, I’m all in.
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UPDATE: If you’re expecting a brilliant defense, well…
Southeastern Conference referee Anthony Jordan has told the league he didn’t mean to show favoritism toward any particular school when he posed for a picture holding an LSU T-shirt five years ago while traveling abroad.
Although that’s probably good enough for the SEC brass. On with the show!
Get The Picture 
The SEC Office delenda est!!!
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The SEC as a whole gets payouts for several years if a team makes the NCAA tournament. The league has an interest in 1) getting as many teams into the field as possible while 2) keeping a select few teams ranked highly.
So by keeping the bubble teams winning over the basement dwellers, and also spreading some wins around the top teams, they can accomplish both.
Hear me out on this last point – The better ranked each team is, the better chance of advancing and earning even more money, right? (The payout from the tournament is based on how many games in the tournament a team plays in).
So Tenn getting a loss probably wont hurt their seeding too much, as one of the top 5-10 teams in the country. But that win is a huge boost for LSU, who was hovering around the 20s. If your seeding improves into the top 7, you have a better chance of advancing, and earning more $$ for the league.
The MSU – UGA issue last week with the toy was a perfect example. That fan throwing the toy on the court did not effect play AT ALL. You always see refs issue a warning when fans throw things. It had been clear to me for several minutes the refs were doing EVERYTHING possible to let MSU coast to that win – But UGA kept hitting shots and MSU kept missing. UGA may have lost anyway without the toy, but the refs made damn sure that insurance Freethrow was tacked on.
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Sorry – the point being re: MSU/UGA game: MSU is a bubble team, and UGA has one league win. An upset hurts MSU’s resume an awful lot. Just sayin.
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Same thing played out at Ole Miss a few days later. Another bubble team, another 1 point win.
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Someone is accusing officials of bias toward LSU? Never heard that one before. Also noted that TN fans feel calls should not be made near the end of close games. Guess they became Bama fans at the end of the SECCG when Ridley got mugged at the goaline in the closing seconds. Also don’t recall them protesting the egregious call of “on the field without a helmet” in the Hail Mary game in Athens two years ago.
I am not a basketball fan so I didn’t see the call they are upset about, but I do believe calls should be made consistently from start to finish. (Like when they had three (3) players on the field without helmets during the middle of the game after recovering a fumble in the end zone.)
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(I know this isn’t a basketball blog, but)
Grant Williams has been flopping around and drawing foul calls for 3.5 years (seems like 6). If he only gets burned for it once, that’s not nearly enough.
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Good to know that the SEC has established it’s brand world wide, ….but Spain and Granada ain’t in the same neighborhood. Geaux DAWGS!
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DIW, you’re not the first person to confuse Grenada with Granada.
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As i was saying, Granada is the 13th largest urban area in Spain and well known for the University located there……
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