Toole loses his cool, and he should have

Photo Credit: David Auth

Editor’s Note: All opinions on RMU Sentry Media are the writer’s own.

MOON TOWNSHIP– During the dying seconds of a tightly contested basketball game between the Robert Morris University Colonials (15-12, 11-3 NEC) and the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights (8-16, 6-7 NEC), controversy come to the forefront.

FDU’s Kaleb Bishop trucked senior guard Josh Williams in what should have been a foul call, but the whistles remained silent.

The buzzer signaled the end of the game and I have never seen officials run off the court faster than that day.

As a certified official in the state of New Jersey, I can say that this call was missed by all the officials. Also, the fact that there was no explanation given to Coach Toole is absolutely poor officiating. He deserved one.

Officiating was questionable throughout the game, though. In the final five minutes of the contest, FDU had seven calls go their way compared to RMU’s two.

Coach Toole did acknowledge in his press conference that his defense did not step up, but what really confuses me is the inconsistency of the officiating.

AJ Bramah absolutely destroyed a would be defender for FDU and hung on the rim a half of a second.

The refs hit him with a technical foul.

In my opinion, it was a terrible call by the refs, and it really changed the momentum of the game. Coach Toole had every reason to be upset at the officials during Saturday’s game for this incident alone.

“The fact that they need to give a tech because the head guy for the refs will look at that and give a bad report for not giving a tech at that moment, but it is okay to run people over,” said Toole.

Toole deserves to be mad. The fact that a player can just truck someone over and there is a no call, yet Bramah hangs on the rim for a half of a second and gets a technical foul, is preposterous.

“If this play happens at any point during any possession of the game, it will get called, and why it wasn’t called right there is beyond me,” said Toole.

Coach Andy Toole has every right to be angry at what went down on Saturday. If i were an official in this first off I would not have called that technical. It was too quick of a call and it’s a call that changes the dynamic of a game. It basically gave FDU free points to get back into the game.

Finally, at the end of the game, I personally saw both coaches get together. They agreed that there was a foul at the end of the game, and that is what really got to Toole. If the other coach even agrees that there was a foul, then why couldn’t the refs come out and give Toole a reasonable explanation?