In one of the most egregious blown calls in the history of basketball officiating, Manasquan High School was cheated out of a trip to the final round of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Boys Basketball Group 2 Tournament. If you haven’t seen the video, please check it out below before proceeding.
Not to take anything away from Camden in what currently stands as a 46-45 victory in the NJSIAA semifinals, but they have to know in their heart of hearts that they don’t deserve to have won. You can see that after Camden makes a free throw to go up by one point, Manasquan’s Griffin Linstra gets the late put-back bucket to win. The final shot got off a full five tenths of a second before the final buzzer. Officials made the right call on the court. However, they huddled together and determined that the basket was no good. Win to Camden.
It’s just ridiculous. We’re talking about a trip to a high school state championship game on the line here. Manasquan Superintendent Dr. Frank Kasyan sounded off on the situation and why the school took legal action on Thursday by filing an injunction, per an Asbury Park Press report:
“I don’t know what can happen, that is why I turned it over to Michael Gross, our school board attorney…I would like to see him get an injunction from the court to stop the games until our protest is heard, because a lot of time what happens is you’ll protest, it drags on and then it becomes a moot point. So the game is Saturday. This has to happen quickly and he’s on it.”
Alas, when Michael Gross brought Manasquan’s case to the Ocean County Superior Court, it was rejected, and ruled that the court had no jurisdiction to even hear the case.
With the state championship between Camden and Arts High School looming on Saturday, it’s becoming a painfully ironic race against the clock for Manasquan. Within that above report from NBC New York is a statement from the NJSIAA explaining why the outcome of the game can’t be overturned:
“The rules are clear — once game officials leave the ‘visual confines of the playing court,’ the game is concluded, and the score is official. […] The results could not then and cannot now be changed.”
The next step? Manasquan’s case is literally going to the federal level of the U.S. government, having been passed on to the Department of Education for an appeal. Something tells me the DOE has bigger fish to fry so to speak. Not holding my breath that they’ll serve proper justice for a high school state semifinal basketball game. But hey, guess it never hurts to try.
One look at the NJSIAA’s X account will tell you how the general public feels about the organization’s lack of action or backbone to correct a clear wrong, even resorting to expressing their dismay about a post that’s meant to be positive and in support of the Special Olympics.
So much advanced technology is readily available to enhance the experience of sports at the high school, college and professional levels. We’re not even talking about any fancy video replay, where officials would have to convene, get around a video monitor, carefully comb over a replay and make a decision. Even the NBA gets that wrong for somebody as legendary as LeBron James more often than you’d expect.
I could see a world in which a high school basketball game wouldn’t have that resource at its disposal. The problem here is, anyone with a camera phone could’ve just strolled up to the trio of nitwits who waived off Manasquan’s winning basket, shown them the plain-as-day video, and none of this would’ve ever happened.
I get the whole “one play doesn’t decide the game” argument in most contexts, but come on. Look at this sh*t. Either the officials are legitimately corrupt or they’re the absolute biggest morons on the planet. It’s not even a “conspiracy theory” to say something like that in this very special case.
Camden should voluntarily give up the win. Of course they won’t do that, nor are they obligated to. That’d be the job of the NJSIAA to be accountable to what millions of humans have now seen with their own two eyeballs. Instead of clinging to some trivial semantics about what’s in your precious rule book, how about y’all don’t rob a deserving winner of participating in the state championship game? Probably too much to ask. Barring any developments to the contrary, it’ll be Camden fighting for a state title on Saturday at Rutgers’ Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway.
