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News / Clark County News

Talking Points: Making the call

The Columbian
Published: March 25, 2013, 5:00pm

What’s the buzz from the world of sports? Here are some items that will have people talking:

1

The block-charge call in the Iowa State-Ohio State game was the wrong call.

Big deal. It was a 50-50 call, a tough call. And I doubt we are going to slow down the game to look at replay of block-charge decisions.

However, we cannot understand why college basketball allows for so many delays to use replay but does not allow for officials to use TV monitors for balls that go out of bounds.

The Illinois-Miami game could have used the NBA rule. In the last two minutes of the game, NBA officials can use replay to determine who touched the ball last before going out of bounds.

Instead of using technology to get the right call on a play like that, we get “too bad, so sad” comments from the NCAA.

Yet, the games are delayed to determine the severity of what are clearly inadvertent elbows.

Or worse, in at least one game this weekend, play was stopped so officials could determine if there should be 31 seconds left on the shot clock or 29.

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Seriously: That’s OK, but we can’t take 30 seconds to find out who should have the ball in the final minute of a two-point game?

2

It does not seem that long ago when the Marlins demanded a new stadium, built with plenty of public money of course, to keep them in Florida.

The club said a new stadium would attract more fans.

Apparently, all the Marlins needed was Groupon.

The new stadium, which opened last year, is not much of a draw at all.

So the team is using Groupon to sell tickets for Opening Day. Yes, you can get tickets for 52 percent off!

We’d understand if this deal was for games in the middle of August for a team that is 30 games out of first place.

But this team needs Groupon for Opening Day?

By the way, Florida taxpayers paid more than 80 percent of the cost of that stadium.

We guess, after taking such a fleecing from a rich baseball owner, the people of Florida do deserve some Groupon deals to watch such a terrible team.

3

We took a look at a lot of the national web sites Monday, and we noticed a lot of “experts” picking Sweet 16 games.

After this past weekend, can we please stop calling ourselves “experts?”

How about we just say, “We’re paid to talk (or write) about sports, and some of us have an interesting perspective but clearly are not experts.”

Unless, of course, you had Florida Gulf Coast in the Sweet 16. Then, my friend, you are an expert and all-knowing.

For more Talking Points, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/talkpoints360

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