The 2023 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament title game between the LSU Tigers and the Iowa Hawkeyes sold out the arena and broke viewership records with unprecedented interest from around the country. But unfortunately, a great game between two talented teams and several superstar players was marred by some extremely controversial officiating.
Fans as well as players and coaches from both teams were not shy in expressing their frustration with the game’s officiating, and it sure sounds like one officiating expert agrees with their assessment.
John Adams, the former NCAA national coordinator of men’s basketball officiating, called the officiating in Sunday afternoon’s game “awful,” saying it was so bad that it likely hurt the perception of women’s basketball.
“From a fan standpoint, there was enormous disappointment with how the game was officiated because the best players were not playing,” Adams told The Athletic. “Having that level of officiating in that type of game, I think, really hurt the meteoric rise of women’s basketball. There is not perfect officiating anywhere ever, but, man, that was awful.”
When a former coordinator of officiating openly admits that the referees were “awful” in a college basketball game, that’s a clear sign that things went very poorly.