What Are the Worst Calls in NCAA Tournament History?

This morning, I was reminded of the atrocious foul call against Lamonte Turner at the end of regulation in Tennessee's 2019 Sweet Sixteen game against Purdue which led to the Boilermakers winning in overtime and advancing to the Elite Eight — and also ending the most fun sports season of my life in my senior year of college that still affects me to this day, but that's neither here nor there.

Every reasonable person who watches that sees it is clearly one of the worst calls in the history of the NCAA Tournament and robbed the Vols of a surefire national championship run, so I went back and looked at some of the other worst calls in the history of the NCAA Tournament.

2017 UNC vs. Gonzaga

This entire game was turned into a free throw shooting contest with ticky-tack fouls called the entire second half, but then when the refs needed to make a call, they didn't. Kennedy Meeks was pretty clearly touching the ball while his hand was out of bounds with less than a minute left and North Carolina up 66-65. The officials let it go and didn't blow the whistle until they called a jump ball, which gave possession back to the Tar Heels, who went on to win 71-65.

2011 Texas vs. Arizona

This five-second call against Texas is particularly egregious, because it wasn't simply an instance of an official missing a call. This ref chose to make himself the star.

You can see it broken down in the video, but when Corey Joseph realizes he's getting close to a five-second violation, he calls a timeout with the official looking right at him before he has even begun his arm motion for the fifth second. And instead of granting the timeout, the official speeds up his arm motion — and doesn't even complete it — and gives the ball to Arizona, which made a layup and got a foul called on the ensuing possession and won 70-69.

2015 Duke vs. Wisconsin

Who could forget the infamous out of bounds call in the 2015 National Championship Game? Most of the replay angles were inconclusive, however CBS finally showed one which very clearly showed the ball being last touched by Justice Winslow and should have given possession back to Wisconsin down five with a little under two minutes to go.

However, the refs kept the call on the floor of Duke basketball and after the game explained that they did not see the replay angle that was shown on television. If that is true — and I'm not entirely sure how it could be — then I suppose it's not the floor officials' faults, but it is somebody's fault. And obviously there's no guarantee Wisconsin comes back from down five in that period of time, but it was robbed of a chance.

2013 Louisville vs. Michigan

I was actually in attendance for this game at the Georgia Dome. It doesn't get talked about as much after the Louisville sanctions, but for my money, this is the second-best title game in recent memory, just behind UNC and Villanova in 2016.

But late in the game with Michigan down by three, Trey Burke made an awesome chase-down block of Peyton Siva and was called for a foul. It was very clearly a clean block and the call was really the turning point that Michigan just couldn't overcome as Louisville went on to win the national championship* 82-76.

2012 Syracuse vs. UNC-Asheville

We will always remember UMBC as being the first No. 16-seed to ever take down a No. 1-seed. But it could have been UNC-Asheville six years prior to be the first to reach that mark.

Trailing by three with less than a minute to go, Asheville forced a turnover off an inbounds pass which should have given the Bulldogs the ball with 30 seconds left down just one possession. Instead, Syracuse retained the ball and Asheville was forced to foul and went on to lose the game 72-65.

2014 Tennessee vs. Michigan

No. 11-seed Tennessee — which had to play in the First Four to even make it into the field of 64 — had clawed all the way back from down 15 with 10 minutes left to down just a single point with 10 seconds left when Jarnell Stokes was called for this charge against No. 2-seed Michigan in the Sweet Sixteen. I still don't want to talk about it.

But man, I miss March Madness. Even if it's the Vols getting screwed, I'd kill to have college basketball on right now. We should never take even these atrocious calls for granted ever again.