Referee's not at fault

Wednesday night St. Johns University and Rutgers went head to head in a Big East tournament battle that went down to the wire, before St. Johns advanced after the 65-63 win. Many are talking about the controversial ending as St. Johns' Justin Brownlee clearly stepped out of bounds, and threw the ball into the stands with nearly 2 seconds left on the clock.

But the Big East referee's are not at fault, they really didn't see anything at all.

The three officials -- Jim Burr, Tim Higgins and Earl Walton, didn't even see the final play of the game.

Jim Burr said in an interview Thursday "I missed the whole thing, I was actually telling (Steve) Lavin how good he looked during the game, and congratulating him on the win."

"Huh? What play?" Higgins said "We blew the whistle a lot, they all kinda seem to blur together in my head." Higgins said when asked about the final play of the game. "We were really tired, but it was such a good game though, right?"

Burr, who has worked 16 Final Fours in his career, felt bad after watching the replay. "Man I
feel bad, I really missed that one, oh well" Burr said before taking a bite of his hot dog "I
mean a lot of ref's would have missed it too, but no biggie."

Earl Walton was on the sideline where the final play took place "I mean yeah, he was on the sideline a little bit, but it was like half his shoe though. If I would have seen that in the first place I would not make a ticky-tack call to change the game with 2 seconds left."

The three referee's walked out immediately after the buzzer sounded, not realizing what had happened. The clock operator James Cardon tried to tell the officials to review the play "...But they pointed to the expired clock and mentioned something about dinner getting cold."

"Look, relax guys" John Adams, the NCAA's national coordinator of men's basketball officiating said "they made a mistake, but that's a tough one to call. Will we suspend them? Sure, but not until next season. It's too late now so it's not like we can do anything."

Steve Lavin quickly ran across the court to shake hands with Rutgers head coach Mike Rice. Lavin was also seen with the referee's in the parking lot after the game, laughing and joking. Before they went home, Lavin gave Higgins a small envelope, shook hands and left. Lavin declined to comment on the parking lot meeting.