COLUMN: Blow the whistle at the end

Kent Malmros, Commentary While it would be nice to thank these three men for their enduring efforts to cause heart failure, or at very least complete fury, it is difficult for the 8,722 fans in the sold-out Palestra Saturday night to find the proper words. Tom DeFelice, John Bonder and Joe Pescitelli, please come forward and collect your title for the most untimely (or flat out bad) officiating performance of the year. Don't misunderstand, this is far from being a bitter gripe that the officials cost Penn the game. Foul trouble is part of any game. Nevertheless, when 8-of-10 starters ended the game with four or more fouls in the Quakers' biggest city clash of the season, someone needs to answer. The terror started early and continued often. The first foul was called 1:04 into the first half on St. Joseph's Rashid Bey. The 5'11" guard wasn't hit with another foul in the half, but the second half was a different story. The match-up of the NBA prospect with Penn guard Michael Jordan was one of the main attractions to the contest. Arguably two of the quickest guards this side of the Mason-Dixon Line squaring off for Philly supremacy. The crowd got what they paid for, until the refs took Bey out of the game. Early in the second half, Bey began to make his noise. Just over three minutes into the stanza, Bey hit a running jumper to bring the Hawks within two. The refs seemed to sense his surge, so it was their turn. At the 15:12 mark Bey was hit with personal foul number two, and number three came all of 13 seconds later. Maybe the officials saw something the rest of the world didn't, but both were hand check calls -- marginal at best -- one of which seemingly never touched Michael Jordan's skin. When two of the quickest points in college basketball go at each other, cut them some slack Bey was on the verge of taking over the game, or so it seemed. But we'll never know. After the second and third fouls, Bey score seven points within the next minute and a half. If the Quakers weren't worried enough, the referees seemed worried for them. Twenty seconds after the seventh point of Bey's dominant stretch, he was whistled for foul number four. St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli commented that Bey shut down Bey, not Jordan. In the second half, the refs shut down Bey. The Quakers and Jordan benefited; the entire state of basketball was harmed. If Bey was going to take the game over and give the Quakers an insurmountable deficit, so be it. The sellout crowd payed to see basketball, not Whistle Blowing 101. After the game, Penn coach Fran Dunphy had no remarks about the officials. Martelli took a slightly different approach. "It was really unfortunate, to be honest with you, that you would have that many guys in a game that wasn't that physical to be honest with you, with four fouls," Martelli said. "I don't get that. I just don't get that." Martelli and Dunphy both had serious problems. St. Joe's forward Robert Haskins, the team's second leading scorer, earned his fourth personal just 1:27 after Bey's fourth. Martelli's two best players were in jeopardy of early exit with ten minutes left in a tie game. Sure he was upset, not that he'd admit it. "You were watching me? You were watching someone else," Martelli said. "I did not once jump up and down. My shirt's not sweaty. The officials were assigned to do the game, they did what they were supposed to do." Sure, Phil. Considering you called a 20 second timeout when you never spoke a word to your players, and chose instead to blow the refs eardrums. At the 6:44 mark, with the game tied at 49, three Penn starters had four fouls, four of the five Hawks' starters had four fouls. The remaining minutes, while eventually thrilling, were marked by the noticeable tiptoeing of three players of 6'7" around the court, making sure not to earn an early seat on the bench. And the noble warrior Bey? Well, when he came back in after more than 5:30 on the bench, he picked up where he left off. With the 1:04 left, the guard hit a floater to put the Hawks up by a crucial basket. The bench warming of Bey, the soft play of inside banger Haskins and foul trouble of Duval Simmonds and Erick Woods undoubtedly aided the Quakers' cause. Similarly, the foul trouble of Paul Romanczuk, Lamar Plummer and Garett Kreitz put a change in St. Joe's plans. But Philadelphia basketball was hurt by our three amigos. The last two minutes were undoubtedly thrilling. But the players need to determine the entire end of the second half, within reason. The officials' desire to take control of the game hurts them, and the teams.