FAIRFAX, VA- After trailing by double digits for most of the evening, George Mason’s fourth quarter rally came up just short, falling to Richmond 75-70 in EagleBank Arena on Wednesday night. But let’s just say that the Spiders had a little help…
Give credit where credit is due though, the Spiders started the game about as well as they could’ve hoped, jumping to an 8-0 lead just a minute and a half into the game. That lead would balloon to a 15-2 lead just four minutes into the game. The Patriots looked dead in the water, but they would not roll over and die.
George Mason would mount a 25-12 run over the course of 14 minutes, and drew even at 27-27 with 3:41 left in the first half. Jacy Bolton hit a pair of threes to cap off the run, sending EBA into a frenzy.
BACK-✌️-BACK
Tie game after @jbolt_2's second straight three-pointer! pic.twitter.com/xVDQ8RLakL
— Mason Women’s Basketball (@MasonWBB) February 20, 2020
Richmond would rattle off a 6-1 run to end the half, taking a 33-28 lead into the break, but after the comeback Mason just had, that’s nothing right?
That 6-1 run would balloon into a 20-7 run to begin the third quarter, with Richmond taking their largest lead of the game, 55-40, with under a minute left in the third quarter.
The fourth quarter belonged to Jordan Wakefield (until it belong to the refs, but we’ll get to that later…) as she would score 9 of her 12 points in the final ten minutes. She scored on this and-1 play with just over four minutes left, capping off an 8-0 Mason run, including out-scoring Richmond 15-5 to that point in the fourth.
GO OFF @wakefield_jo13!!!
One-point game, 60-59! pic.twitter.com/vZ5J1MMaZd
— Mason Women’s Basketball (@MasonWBB) February 20, 2020
In the final minute of the game Jordan drilled this corner three to make it a one point game, sending EBA into a frenzy once more:
.@wakefield_jo13 KNOCKS DOWN THE THREE!!
Mason 70, Richmond 71 (33.5 4Q) pic.twitter.com/exR9GPYk1p
— Mason Women’s Basketball (@MasonWBB) February 20, 2020
On the ensuing Richmond possession, George Mason would force a turnover, enabling them to get the last shot of the ballgame down just one point. Having just had a Richmond timeout, Head Coach Nyla Milleson was content to let the possession play out, and let reigning A-10 Player of the Year Nicole Cardaño-Hillary make a play.
Here’s how the controversial final possession played out:
At the tail end of the play in a mass scramble, Richmond’s Kate Klimkiewicz grabbed the defensive rebound under the basket. Knowing that Mason has to stop the clock, Nicole Cardaño-Hillary reaches in to commit the intentional foul to stop the clock.
Yeah, it’s a hard foul. No question about it. Nicole lunges at Klimkiewicz full force to try to foul as quickly as she can, knowing the time left in the game. Yes, Klimkiewicz, who is six feet tall, hits the deck. It looks like a hard foul, but you’ve got to keep in mind the situation at hand. The referees in this situation completely failed to do so.
In fact, the entire fourth quarter had become a ref show, not even including this foul. Over the course of the game, George Mason and Richmond were whistled for 22 fouls each. In the fourth quarter alone, Mason was called for 10 and Richmond was called for seven. And it’s not like the game had become a free throw shooting contest to extend the game, far from it actually. The referees just completely took over the game in the final 10 minutes.
Getting back to this foul in question with 0.02 left in the game, Nicole is charged with not a common foul, but a Technical Foul, essentially ending the game. Here’s another look:
As a referee, you just cannot make that call at that stage of the game. It decides the outcome right then and there. Even if Richmond made both free throws had the foul just been whistled as a common foul, Mason had timeouts which would’ve enabled them to advance the ball and try to draw up some miracle play. It likely wouldn’t have been successful, but you never know. Instead, the officials took that opportunity away from George Mason.
Moreover, to call a Technical Foul on Nicole is simply the wrong call, per the rule book. Per the NCAA’s 2019-20 Official Rule Book, Section 12 Article 1 defines a Technical Foul as “a non-contact foul of a behavioral nature committed by a player or bench personnel, such as misconduct, which is a behavior or an act that is unbecoming to a fair, ethical and honorable individual.”
The key word there in that phrasing is non-contact. In fact, Section 13 Article 1 outlines the qualifications for an Intentional Foul as, “a player-contact foul which, in the judgment of the official, is:
a. Not a legitimate attempt to make a direct play on the ball;
b. Contact designed to negate an opponent’s obvious advantageous position;
c. Contact away from the ball against an opponent who is clearly not
involved in the play, designed to stop the game clock or prevent it from
starting;
d. Contacting an opponent making a throw-in. This act shall also serve as a
team warning for reaching through the boundary. (See Rule 4-9.1.g.);
e. Excessive, hard and/or unnecessary contact against an opponent; and
f. Illegal contact caused by the swinging of an elbow that is deemed
excessive or unnecessary”
Even if the referees really felt obligated to make a call in this situation, an Intentional Foul would have been the proper call. I don’t make the rules folks.
And all of that is fine and good. Alright, I digress, the referees made the call, it is what it is. Richmond’s gonna win the game, you move on. But the officials didn’t let the situation end there. Instead of defusing the situation, they instead chose to escalate things further by refusing to give Mason head coach Nyla Milleson a proper explanation for why they decided to make a call that effectively ended the game. Milleson repeatedly asked for an explanation from the referees, who simply refused to give her one. Eventually, the officials had seen enough and tagged Nyla Milleson with a Technical Foul, her first in 30 years of coaching as she said post-game.
Granted, I think that was a calculated effort by Milleson, which she alluded to post-game: “Sometimes, what happened right there at the end might be what this team needs to get fired up to play to the best of our ability coming down the stretch [of the season].”
Let me be clear to, this is to take nothing away from Richmond. They fought hard, they battled and weathered Mason’s storm. It’s just a damn shame this game played out the way it did.
There are now just three games left in the regular season, and for the first time all year, Mason sits alone now in 14th place in the Atlantic 10 standings. They know they are going to be playing on the road in the first round of the A-10 Tournament. But this team still has a lot of fight left in them.
“We’re better than this record shows,” said Milleson.
“Sometimes when you’re struggling, that’s the way the ball bounces.”
