Robbery

"UNC, we the referees of the ACC have decided that in lieu of playing games, we will hand you the ACC Tournament title. With our favorite player, Tyler "Will be shit in the NBA" Hansborough, on the floor any and every call will be given to the baby blue."

Absolutely disgusting. There is no reason UNC should have won that game. VT outplayed, despite Raycom broadcasting's horrible (and noticeably biased) commentary, UNC from beginning to end. It's hard to beat the number 1 seed and the refs. How can one team have only had three fouls called against them with less than a minute left in the second half -- a team that has been playing from behind which usually results in a team being a bit aggressive? How can a VT lose by only three with ten less free throw attempts? Because VT outplayed UNC. Imagine what may have been had the game been called evenly? Tyler Hansborough shot one less free throw than the entire Hokies team.
As of 2:30 pm March 13, 2009, the officials for this game have been deleted from the box scores on Foxsports.com, sportsline.com, and espn.com. I wanted to look up some stats on their officiating tendencies but their names are simply not available. Odd.

After 15 minutes of searching, I found the trio responsible for this travesty of officiating:

Karl Hess, who has officiated 10 UNC games this year (the most for any team he's officiated this season)

Ray Natili, who has a more even keeled officiating resume across ACC teams.

Brian Dorsey, who also has an even keeled officiating resume across the ACC.

Interestingly enough, all three officials have worked more UNC games than VT games. Referee info provided by statsheet.com