News-Record.com

I know I shouldn't be surprised by what sometimes eminates from ESPN (home of Sean Salisbury and his below-the-belt camera phone), but my eyebrows did rise just a tad last night at the comments of college basketball analyst Stephen Bardo.

Bardo was on the college hoops tonight where the closing seconds of Duke's 68-66 win over Clemson were being talked about. The replay that showed that the clock failed to start on time on Vern Hamilton's steal and game-tying 3-pointer was aired. Then the host, Rece Davis, asked Bardo what happened.

"Home cooking" Bardo glibly responded, getting a knowing chuckle from his studio colleagues.

Whoa, whoa, whoa there big fella!

First, let's not dispute that the failure to start the clock on time helped Duke. The Blue Devils ended up with 4.4 seconds to work with, instead of just, say, 2.4 or so.

But it's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge leap from human error to home court conspiracy.

But I'll play along. According to Bardo - as well as the irate Clemson fans who have written me this morning - here's what must have happened.

The clock operator watches as Josh McRoberts inexplicably passes the ball right to Hamilton. Rather than starting the clock there, the operator makes the cool, calculated decision to hold off for a second or two, just in case Hamilton's 3-pointer goes through the basket, so his beloved Blue Devils will have more time on their next possession. Never mind that, if Hamilton's shot had not gone in, the late-starting clock would have actually given the Tigers more time to get the rebound and hoist up another last-gasp shot. Nope, apparently the clock operator also judged the arc of Hamilton's shot, judged it to be on its way in, and started the clock just before it went through the basket.

Riiiiiggggght.

What about the refs, you say? Why didn't they put more time on the clock? Bardo's more rational collegeague, Jay Bilas, says they made a mistake here. But I'm not so sure.

Originally the clock ran down to 1.8 seconds before Duke was credited with a timeout. So the refs naturally went over to the video replay to determine how much time was left WHEN HAMILTON'S SHOT WENT THROUGH THE NET. They correctly got the time as 4.4 seconds.

It's not part of their job description at that moment to go back to the previous play - the steal and Hamilton's shot - to make sure that was timed correctly as well. If that was the case, why not go back to the play before that, Hamilton's layup, to make sure it was timed correctly? The slope gets a big slippery here folks. The mistake was human error by the clock operator, not in how they refs handled the situation.

Does any of this make Clemson fans feel better? Of course not? Does it make Duke any less lucky? Nope. But let's lay off the pro-Duke conspiracy theories for at least a day.

Okay, at least a few more hours.