Atlantic 10 Conference Basketball - NIT Tournament

NIT Semifinals Recap - Rhode Island vs North Carolina

North Carolina 68, Rhode Island 67 (OT)

Two basketball teams competed hard on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden in New York. Two ballclubs vigorously struggled for supremacy in a clamorous contest that was fiercely fought but frightfully flawed. North Carolina and Rhode Island gave it the old college try inside The World's Most Famous Arena. Yet, at the end of a late night in the big city, only one team survived. Quite frankly, it really didn't deserve to be the one left standing.

It's true that North Carolina's beleaguered point guard, Larry Drew II, once again made a number of clutch plays late in a game to carry Coach Roy Williams's team to Thursday night's NIT championship showdown against Dayton. It's also true that Tyler Zeller, who has had an up-and-down sophomore season, contributed mightily to the Carolina cause with some gritty play inside the paint. However, with those truths being noted, it's hard to deny the notion that Rhode Island - at the very least - deserved a chance to win this game in the final seconds of overtime. The details tell the tale.

As commentator Fran Fraschilla noted on the ESPN2 telecast of this tilt, one point of emphasis for college basketball officials in 2010 has been the unintentional trip. Even though a player might have no desire to obstruct the path of an opposing ballhandler, the act of tripping is supposed to be called. This tension in the world of officiating can be hard to resolve, given an awareness of how accidental such plays can appear to the naked eye in real time. Many open-court or loose-ball fouls in basketball are not so much the "fault" of the defender as they are a result of unusual progressions of action. A player's body might get caught in the wrong position or angle, and that's all it takes for a foul to be committed. The offending player might have had no desire to commit a foul, but if bodies bang together in such a way that the ball is knocked loose or a fast break is blunted, the principle known as "advantage gained" needs to be invoked. A foul call must be made in such situations.

Long story short, that foul call was not made at the end of overtime, and that's why North Carolina - not Rhode Island - is playing a game on Thursday in the Garden.

With the Tar Heels up by one, at 68-67, Carolina - in possession of the ball - exhausted the shot clock with roughly seven seconds left. Drew - who had scored five points late in regulation to erase a Rhode Island lead and get this game into overtime - missed a jump shot that was rebounded by URI's Lamonte Ulmer, who immediately began steaming downcourt. Just when Ulmer was hitting full stride and dribbling all the while, a few players tumbled right behind him, including UNC's Deon Thompson. In the crazy sequence, Thompson's back accidentally clipped Ulmer's heel, sending the Rams' fabulous forward crashing to the floor. The ball popped loose with just over one second left on the clock, and time expired while URI coach Jim Baron wondered why a foul wasn't called.

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For the second time in three days, an ACC brand name in the world of college basketball had received a favorable call in a late-stage tournament game against a member of the sport's have-nots. One day's Duke win over Baylor - thanks in part to a key charge call that looked dubious from start to finish - was followed two nights later by North Carolina's win over Rhode Island. Such is life at the tail-end of March Madness.

One other thing needs to be said in assessing this game: As much as Rhode Island deserved to shoot foul shots at the end of Tuesday's 45-minute throwdown, the Rams can look squarely in the mirror if they want to know why they couldn't decide the issue earlier. URI led, 59-54, with just 1:47 left in regulation time, but five missed foul shots - one of them being the front end of a one-and-one, which essentially counts as two misses - allowed Drew and the Tar Heels to create an extra period. The back-and-forth session of bonus basketball was entertaining even though it was disjointed. Yet, the final and fateful failure of the officials to call a tripping foul left a bitter taste in the mouths of Rhode Island's players, coaches and fans.

This was an even game, the kind of game in which missed free throws played a very large role. Yet, the fact of the matter is that officiating-based points of emphasis were not followed on Tuesday night in New York.

The Rhode Island Rams paid a steep price as a result.

What's Next

North Carolina will don its Carolina-blue road jerseys one more time on Thursday, as the Tar Heels take on the Dayton Flyers in the NIT championship game. Tip-off time is 7:05 p.m. Eastern. ESPN will cover the action from Madison Square Garden.

By: Matt Zemek
A10-fans.com Senior Staff Writer