Story by reader Kelwin Koh
Singapore Basketball Center, Friday, August 1, 2008 – I only managed to make it to SBC mid-way through the 3rd quarter and as I entered the hall, the scoreboard on Court 1 read 43-33 with Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) holding a comfortable 10-point lead. HCI were dominant inside the paint area with their two tall centers. They smothered the Woodlands Ring offense and disrupted their usual frantic, high-speed running offense.
HCI dominated the boards and reduced the ability of WR to go on their fastbreaks.
But as the time wore on, it was evident that Woodlands Ring would not go down quietly. Led by WR#10 Aldric Hu, the team went on a full-court press with close to 4 minutes left in the quarter. HCI's glaring weakness at the guard position was fully exposed as they could neither find a way to safely inbound the ball nor to feed their superior low-post players on the offense. Woodlands Ring came up with steal after steal and a dagger 3-point shot by Aldric with 55 seconds left on the clock closed the game to within 1 possession.
What happened next has to be among the most bizarre 55 seconds of basketball so far in this year's C Div Basketball Championship with turnovers, a missed full-court pass by HCI and two close calls by the referees to stop the clock at 4s and 1s left. As Woodlands Ring set up to repeat their set play with 1 second left on the clock, I wondered why HCI failed to cover WR#10 Aldric with a box-1. And as expected by everyone in the audience, Aldric came off a screen, caught the inbound pass, set his feet and swished in the game-winning 3-point shot.
Pandemonium erupted on the HCI bench as they saw the referee's hand raised to indicate a successful 3-point shot. They were not the only ones who could not believe it as spectators also had looks of bewilderment on their faces.
Had the buzzer gone before the shot? Would a player have time to set his feet before shooting with the clock at 1 second?
I believe that in the NBA, such a situation would call for a review of the video before a final judgment is made however at our school level, the referee's decision is final. Kudos to HCI for maintaining their composure and deciding to take the gentleman's route of contesting this issue by lodging an appeal with the organizers.
However it seems that if they do make it to the next round, they have a more pressing issue at hand, that is getting their guards to understand how to break the full-court press. This problem has plagued them since the zonal rounds and looking at the possible opponents in the second round (Jurong, Anglican, Raffles, Unity), those teams are all adept at applying the full-court press with fearsome aggressiveness.
Hopefully with time, the resources will allow us to have an additional referee on the court and hopefully video evidence that referees can call upon to review controversial calls but until then, we can only trust the men in black.
Ed’s note: This post was written and submitted to us before another reader brought up the picture evidence you see below. The picture evidence was rejected by the arbitration panel because it was not agreed before the match started that picture evidence was permitted.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=815DQOZIkFA
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its doesnt mean that everyone who complain about the refs are from hwachong.there are ppl who are actively involved in sports who complain.they are just expressing their opinions.i am one such person.
oh wait, i ran my mouth too soon. THAT WAS A BAD BAD CALL!!!! ( just saw the video )
come on hwa chong, enough. get over it.
you’re a prestigious school and you are making you look bad by complaining. this is sports, stuff like that happens. just treat it as life lessons.
although i nv think that the referees are the KING in the court, the more i dun agree that thye can PLAY GOD to decide who wins. but it is undeniable that they have a very very important role to play during a match. they decide if it is interesting, they decide if the players are protected against ROUGH play. thats y we have very high expectation of the referees. and by showing the whole this attitude (they r God), this standard (the time is 0 but no buzzer?)(i rem very very vividly that when the time ends, there is usually a loud buzzer) they did not admit their mistake and uses the rules as excuses), i think…….i cant help but to feel disappointed.
if you were to made the statement of yours .. you are prefectly wrong already . . ref have to be trained to make almost flawless calls . cos what if both team trains as hard , have same standards . . then it would more depends on every call the ref made . cos every call would either dis moralise the team , force to change the way the team supposed to play to win . . as ref they have a very significant role to play .
how can the organiser be liddat? this is really not fair to hci. they had trained hard for this day, but because of such a miserable mistake, all their effort had gone down the drain
I am someone vey much involved in sch sports and this is an issue that has been bothering me for quite a while. Apparently there is a rule,in black and white no less, stating that in the case of an appeal, no video or photographic evidence will be considered by the appeals panel. I was once involved in such an appeal involving the umpire’s interpretation of a very basic rule. the entire appeal hearing was basically a case of “your-word-against-mine”. Both parties met the panel separately to state their case and the decision was made. I even invited a SEA games umpire as my witness but they did not allow him to speak. Eventually, a case of rule misinterpretation by the umpire became brushed off as “miscommunication between umpire and teacher” when I thought we had a “can’t lose” case.
So there, this is what you may call an insider’s view of the appeal process. Is it the best way to settle appeal? depends on what you define as “the best way” or who is it best for but that’s the way it is being done. Anyone out there who reads this and is in position to comment or make a change, please do.
After viewing the video, I feel that HCI lost was actually quite bizzare. Although I am not an avid fan of the local basketball scene but I do know what are the rules of the game and I cannot find any logic in awarding the 3 points to WRS. Kudos to wrs for working so hard but the win was still due to wrong calls.
This doesn’t only happen in basketball. The referees/umpires are unprofessional in singapore, not well-trained, ejecting people for no reason, for reasons that they can come up with. It’s really sad and disappointing that people in such a job are not impartial. They either give lousy calls to BOTH teams, or either team. Sometimes, when they’ve made a bad call, and we appeal, they come up with RIDICULOUS reasons to cover up, and threaten to eject the coaches/players. In softball that’s what happens.
Back to this case, i feel that this is ridiculous as there ALREADY is PICTORIAL evidence that the WRS player had shot AFTER the time was buzzed over. But too bad, it’s the organisers and officials who decide. Perhaps next time, for every sport, the games should be all recorded for reference in case of such a thing.
Agreed.
I tink referees r damn bious. the game against dunman sec oso like dat. the referees r obviously unfair towards hci.
I am “surprised” that the committee thinks that the photo evidence was not to be permitted as before the match started, the
pictorial evidence” policy wasn’t in place! Then may I question if such irrevocable evidence are not to be admitted, what kinds of evidence do they deem as suitable for appeals? Apparently, they really do not entertain, or even seriously consider appeals, what’s more with such concrete evidence. I am disappointed at the committee. The HCI boys have trained and worked so hard, and yet, they are robbed of an advancement place due to an erroneous call, which should have been set right by the pictorial evidence as shown. This really tells alot of the Singapore’s basketball standards. I hope the committee is not awfully biased too, and side their own referees, choosing to ignore even the most concrete of proof.
come on la, no game is perfectly fair.
just respect the referee’s call, even if they had make a mistake.
instead of protesting, maybe you guys should learn how to offend and defend properly.
-.-
so sad, the game’s results are depend on those poor standard referees and sadly “their decision is final” is the golden rule of the game, its the excuse for them to stop further investigation of the truth. Next time, the two teams just stand in front of the referees and let them decide who win without playing la….save energy for other games
I think from now on should enforce a rule that all basketball game should be recorded since all the referees are not up to professional standard and the committee cannot even help to resolve the mistakes.
http://redsports.sg/2008/08/06/hci-protest-c-division/
http://redsports.sg/2008/04/12/referee-basketball/
who broke the backboard?!
“Notes:… Despite the loss, Woodlands Ring can take comfort that their result against Hwa Chong Institution will stand. This means that Woodlands Ring can proceed to the next round as the second-placed team in group A.”
Interesting comment. I wasn’t aware that the arbitration committee had ruled yet. What do you know that the rest of us need to know.
wad e hell. one ref break e backboard, one ref do this sai. wad is e problem wif these refs?