UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, February 26, 1997
3B
Kansas swimmers, divers splash into conference meet
By Kelly Cannon Kansas sportswriter
When the inaugural Big 12 Conference swimming and diving championships begin tomorrow, Kansas teams will be looking to see where they stand.
Both the men's and women's swimming and diving teams left yesterday for the championships, which are being held tomorrow through Saturday in College Station, Texas.
"it's hard to say, I don't know where we are," said Gary Kempf, Kansas head swimming coach. "We'll swim and dive great, but we'll have to call on a lot of emotion. We'll give it our best shot."
The teams competing in College Station are former Big 8 Conference teams Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa State and Missouri. Joining them will be Texas and Texas A&M.
"This is one of the fastest conference meets in the nation," Kempf said.
According to national rankings,
the favorite for the championship is Texas, followed by Nebraska, Kempf said.
"In rankings, our men should finish fourth and our women third," Kempf said. "But I think we can do better than that."
This is the last meet for Kansas before the NCAA championships in March. Tyler Painter, freshman; Kristin Nilsen, junior; Erik Jorgensen, senior; and Rebecca Andrew, senior, have qualified and will compete in the NCAA Championships.
"I think we'll qualify more people this weekend," Kempf said.
The women's NCAA championship meet will be held from March 20-22 in Indianapolis, and the men's meet is scheduled for March 27-29 in Minneapolis.
Kempf said he was confident about his team's preparation for the conference championship.
"We're ready to go, we've trained hard, we're rested and fast," he said.
Be a part of a Kansas tradition. Volunteers are needed for a variety of positions in the 72nd annual Kansas Relays on April 16-19. Call the track and field office at 864-3486, or go to room 150 in Allen Field House for more information or to sign up.
Recent incidents of poor officiating in college basketball have caused basketball analysts to make a case for instant replay.
Instant replay a valuable tool
An incorrect call by a referee ended the Feb. 16 contest between Wake Forest and North Carolina State. Instead of going into overtime, the game ended with a blown call and a victory for the Wolfpack. And officials working the Feb. 11 Duke-Virginia game did not acknowledge that a Cavalier player was sitting on the sidelines waiting to check in for the final five seconds, allowing Duke to escape with a victory.
Fans should not fault referees for making mistakes, because not all plays can be seen easily from an official's standpoint — this is where instant replay comes into play. Most basketball venues are equipped with numerous television cameras to provide various perspectives. Technology should be taken advantage of instead of relying on 50-year-old squinting referees to blow a whistle at mid-court.
To avoid the instant-replay fiasco of the NFL in the early '90s, officials only should be able to consult a monitor when there is less than one minute remaining in
a game. Coaches should be
a game. Allowed to appeal one call per game. Most of the bad calls made during the first 39 minutes are forgotten, but the last 60 seconds can leave a sour taste in coaches', players' and fans' mouths. Television commentators Digger Phelps
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and Bucky Waters both agree that replays should be considered.
Because replays are not allowed to correct a referee's judgment call, college basketball must suffer for now. What would have happened if the Virginia player would have been allowed to enter? What would Tim Duncan have done in overtime of the Wake Forest-N.C. State game?
The final seconds of the 1972 Olympic gold medal game between the U.S.S.R. and United States were played three times before a Russian player finally scored an easy bucket at the
buzzer to hand the United States its only Olympic defeat. Why did the Russians receive three tries to win? Because the inconclusive officials said so. Bitter American players still have not picked up the silver medals awaiting them.
If only instant replay had been around in the "70s ... but it's available now and still is not used.
The effects of the two incorrect calls this season will be played out in the next few weeks. Wake now is ranked No. 5 in the AP poll, and if the upper echelon of college basketball remains unchanged, it most likely means the Demon Deacons will not receive a top seed in the NCAA tournament. And Virginia's defeat may have dropped the 16-11 team from contention.
But at the same time, Duke and N.C. State's aspirations for the Big Dance were made easier by the officials. In the upcoming brutal ACC tournament, seedings will be affected by win/loss totals, and Duke will have an easier time disposing of its first-round opponent. But Wake will be matched against a tougher squad.
Tracy Holland, chairman of the NCAA selection committee, was quoted in USA Today as saying he would place an asterisk next to the
results from those games when the committee was considering selections. Holland is to be commended for recognizing the mistakes of officials and attempting to correct them. Maybe there should be three basketball polls: the AP, the CNN/USA Today and the adjusted-rankings-because-of-officiating-errors poll.
While Holland will overlook those errors, members of the media and coaches who vote in the polls do not care about what would have happened. They are just concerned about what the final result was — no ifs, ands, buts or asterisks about it.
Game officials cannot change the calls now; however, pollsters and selection committee members have seen the replays and should make the right call when March Madness arrives. Until instant replay is permitted in college basketball, all players, coaches and fans must trust the judgment calls of the officials. There cannot be three Ed Hightowers officiating each game, and the committee needs to keep that in mind on Selection Sunday.
SOFT N GENTLE BATHROOM TISSUE
Comments? E-mail Dave at sports@kansan.com
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