Big East admits mistake in the West Virginia-Louisville game

The Big East conference has admitted that their officials made a procedural and communication error during Saturday afternoon's contest between West Virginia and Louisville.

The call that the Big East is referring to came in the final 10 seconds. West Virginia had just taken the lead on a Da'Sean Butler jumper. At the other end, Reginald Delk missed a three for Louisville. In ensuing battle for the rebound, the ball was deflected out of bounds. Referee Mike Kitts ducked out of the way to avoid getting hit, but in the process didn't see who knocked the ball out of bounds and didn't make a ruling as to who the ball belonged to.

The official rule is that if no call is made by the official, then the possession arrow determines who gets the ball (in this case, the arrow pointed to Louisville). The officials went to the screen to check out a clock issue, but according to Pitino they were actually trying to see who the ball was knocked out off of.

Obviously, they cannot do that.

According to Andy Katz,

The unofficial word is that the officials knew the ball went off Louisville (which was later proved correct upon close replay) but never enunciated that point to West Virginia or Louisville, hence the “lack of communication” issue from the Big East.

The irony in all of this?

The call that is being apologized for is the one that the officials actually got right. No mention was made of the refs missing the ball bounce off Joe Mazzulla's head the possession before, which allowed Butler to hit the eventual game-winning jumper.