Samford Utterly Screwed By Refs In Loss to Kansas

The 2024 NCAA Tournament had its first major moment of controversy Thursday night. Samford battled Kansas to a standstill and appeared on the verge of a major upset when an official stepped in and made one of the worst calls in March Madness history. It changed the game and handed a win to Kansas.

The sequence started when Samford’s Jaden Campbell hit a 3-pointer with 19.9 seconds left to cut Kansas’ lead to 90-89. On the ensuing inbounds play, Nick Timberlake got free and appeared on his way to a breakaway dunk. That’s when A.J. Staton-McCray closed hard from behind and executed a perfect chase-down block. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, a referee had to ruin it by blowing his whistle.

Here’s the sequence:

That’s just absolutely absurd. That official should retire immediately. He should never be allowed on a college basketball floor ever again.

Timberlake made both free throws, then Samford missed a 3-pointer, was forced to foul and the Jayhawks were able to close things out with a 93-89 win. They didn’t deserve it.

Here’s the thing, if that call doesn’t get made, Samford has the ball down one with 14 seconds left and Kansas would have been down a man with Timberlake on his back. That doesn’t mean the Bulldogs would have won the game, but they had momentum and a huge advantage the other way. Instead, Kansas got two points handed to them.

My question is this: they review everything in college basketball at this point, how can this not be reviewable? The play was dead because of the foul call, why can’t they take a look at it? It was instantly apparent on replay that the block was clean. The review would have taken 10 seconds. Instead, an official inserted himself where he didn’t belong and there was no way to correct it.

That was one of the most important moments in the history of Samford’s basketball program, and they had it taken away from them. It’s not right.

They absolutely got screwed.