I ran across this, and though you folks might enjoy. With all the controversy on the physical play, and the officiating thereof, this article gives us something to think about...

The Charleston Daily Mail Wrote:Officiating in college ball needs to change
Games have become too physical, so referees need to exercise control
by Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor
Monday February 15, 2010

It's time to blow the whistle on an issue that involves a lot of contact - too much contact really.

The game that college basketball has become isn't pretty. It's too often wrestling with a ball. It's a physical sport that has become far too physical.

Some would lay the blame at the feet of the rulesmakers for letting the game become too much about body contact. I blame it more on the officials, the striped-shirt men who call the games - and I'm primarily talking about major college ball.

There is much less political wrangling - and less contact - on the floor in the lower levels of college hoops. You can talk all you want about moving back the 3-point line 1 foot to create space in the paint ... that's another joke of a rules change, because it's just more space to wrestle.

When college basketball is much more physical than the NBA - and it is - then it's time to make changes.

It comes down to this: If the officials call the games according to the rules, the sport at its top level would be much cleaner. If the officials called games tighter earlier in the season (and earlier in games), a lot of the chippiness wouldn't take place ... because the players and coaches would know the boundaries.

A good place to start? Officials should tell the coaches to shut up.

The sideline swamis don't need to sit down, just quit jawing over every other whistle. This isn't lobbying at the State Capitol. It's basketball. If a coach doesn't shut up early, call a technical foul. He doesn't want a second one. The zebras have to show they mean business. Have some guts.

Instead, too many officials choose to spend much of the game discussing calls and interpretations with coaches, even while play continues on the floor. As the years go by, it gets worse. If a coach doesn't get this call, he tries to get the next one - and often the zebras give it to him.

Officials have a tough job. I realize that, but if they want to play politician, run for office back at home. How many times in a game have you seen officials - maybe even subconsciously - "even things up?"

I am not suggesting at all, in any fashion, that they're crooked. I am saying that they listen too much to coaches, and eventually, most of the time, the number of fouls or violations somehow just works out. Maybe it's because they know they'll cross paths again in the not-too-distant future.

As an example, I'll use the Louisville-West Virginia game last month. In the first five minutes of the second half, the Cardinals were called for seven fouls, the Mountaineers none. It was bound to somehow even out and the worst part is, you knew it was going to happen. It almost always does.

It took WVU only the next 3:07 to get seven personals, while Louisville got two more.

A lot of what transpires - bad calls, going too often to the TV monitor, which has become a crutch for too many officials - happens because I think too many of these guys are too tired.

The officiating system at the highest level of the sport is a Catch-22 situation. You want the best officials - or supposedly the best - for the top games. Yet, if it works that way (and it does), those guys end up calling way too many games. It also prevents the needed development of new faces in stripes at the top of the sport.

Last Friday, when Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun returned from his health-related leave of absence, one issue he addressed after watching a bunch of games at home on the tube was officiating.

He said the NCAA allows officials to work too many days without a break. He also said officials should have to watch and study tape of their games.

"I would bet you - I don't know this to be true, could be 100 percent wrong - that some (officials) in our league don't watch eight hours during the season," Calhoun said. "They may look at one play, but they don't watch eight hours during the season."

"I like a lot of these guys; I think they're good for the game. I don't know how you can be good if you work 15 out of 16 or 16 out of 18 nights, whatever figures you give me."

"It's a problem that appears to be getting worse."

That's a Basketball Hall of Fame coach with more than 800 wins and two NCAA Tournament titles as the whistleblower on this, not just a press-row sitter of more than four decades.

Yes, the best officials are good, but they could be better. It's a great gig if you can handle the pressure and travel in the oft-brutal winter weather. Officials are paid a game fee, per diem and travel stipend. It works out, for the average Big East home game, between $1,500 and $2,000 per man.

More examples, courtesy of the Web sites bbstate.com and statsheet.com, where they track officials as well as a plethora of other statistical measurements:

Two of the officials who worked Friday night's WVU-Pitt triple overtime game past midnight - Joe Lindsay and Tim Clougherty - had a Xavier-Florida 6 o'clock tipoff the next night in Gainesville. Consider the wakeup calls, plane connections, weather, etc.

You make the call. Could those guys have been at their best? (Clougherty, after working Xavier-Florida on Saturday night, had a 1 p.m. Louisville-Syracuse tipoff Sunday at the Carrier Dome, too.)

The other WVU-Pitt official, Les Jones, worked seven games (seven cities) in nine days through Sunday. In order, he had N.C. State-Georgia Tech, USF-Notre Dame, Illinois-Wisconsin, Duke-North Carolina, WVU-Pitt, Georgia Tech-Wake Forest (the night after the triple OT assignment) and Boston College-Florida State.

Don't think that these are exceptions. Among faces you see regularly working Big East Conference games, Mike Kitts, Bryan Kersey, Ed Corbett, Karl Hess, John Higgins and John Cahill already have called at least 65 games this season.

Kitts, of Syracuse, N.Y., worked 25 games in 31 days in January, starting with the WVU-Purdue game. He also worked Dec. 27-28-29-30-31. Those 30 games were in six conferences.

I know there are ways the game can be better than it is, because history tells us that. It's never going to be ballet, nor should it be. It doesn't need to be brutal, but it too often is. Tired and political officials don't help.

It's up to the officials and their conference and NCAA supervisors to make the call.

Contact Sports Editor Jack Bogaczyk at jackb@dailymail.com or 304-348-7949.

The solution seems pretty obvious to me. Train and hire some more officials. Try to cut down on the travel they have to do. Give 'em a break here and there, so they aren't tired, which leads to errors in judgement...

An idiot can see it. The question is, will the idiot in charge do anything about it?

It was noted by Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com that the officials in the UK-Miss St. game had already logged combined over 200 games this year.

The problem isn't giving them a break, its themselves taking the break. If they typically work two Big East games a week, that official will likely try to sneak in MAAC, A-10 or CAA game that week if it doesn't conflict.