[M T]

On the subject of referees' calls, I watched a replay of the USC@Maryland game.   At one point in the first half, Watkins skids when planting a pivot foot bad enough to lose her balance.  No travel call..  When the ball next got to the half court with the USC bench, the coach got in the refs ear.  She seemed to be complaining about a lack of a elbow call on that slip (there was no contact by Maryland on that).  The obliging refs stopped play and went to the monitor ('for an unobserved <unintelligible>").  She got her uncharged timeout.

The refs were calling practically nothing in the 3rd before the 5-minute time out (and things got pretty chippy), and then they started calling tiny stuff.  It seems their favorite is to call the offense for some foul when setting a screen.  (While I'm no fan of USC, there was a screening foul they called against USC that I simply can't figure out what the ref thought was illegal.)

Everyone says they want consistency in officiating, but when officials clearly change their calling at a time out, its going to cause some players to get fouls.   If the refs went to each bench and said "Things are getting too rough. We're going to be calling it tighter now," then I'd be OK with that.
---
Also, I noted that the jerseys said "SoCal" rather than "USC". Have they thrown in the towel on what team gets called "USC"?

[M T]

On the subject of referees' calls, I watched a replay of the USC@Maryland game.   At one point in the first half, Watkins skids when planting a pivot foot bad enough to lose her balance.  No travel call..  When the ball next got to the half court with the USC bench, the coach got in the refs ear.  She seemed to be complaining about a lack of a elbow call on that slip (there was no contact by Maryland on that).  The obliging refs stopped play and went to the monitor ('for an unobserved <unintelligible>").  She got her uncharged timeout.

The refs were calling practically nothing in the 3rd before the 5-minute time out (and things got pretty chippy), and then they started calling tiny stuff.  It seems their favorite is to call the offense for some foul when setting a screen.  (While I'm no fan of USC, there was a screening foul they called against USC that I simply can't figure out what the ref thought was illegal.)

Everyone says they want consistency in officiating, but when officials clearly change their calling at a time out, its going to cause some players to get fouls.   If the refs went to each bench and said "Things are getting too rough. We're going to be calling it tighter now," then I'd be OK with that.
---
Also, I noted that the jerseys said "SoCal" rather than "USC". Have they thrown in the towel on what team gets called "USC"?