Last year on a flight home from Portland, I had the pleasure of sitting next to a ref who has worked Pac-10 games in recent years. He was a nice, young guy and didn’t look familiar to me. He had been in Portland for a tryout for the NBA, working a pre-season Blazers game.

After embarrassing myself by telling him how poor I feel the officiating is in the Pac-10 and him telling me that he was one of those refs, he said the problem is the rule book—that they have to call it as tightly as they do. But what I inferred from the conversation is that it has more to do with how the head of officials or the league commissioner (can’t remember which or both have authority) interprets the rules.

Given the big difference between the way the Pac-10 and Big East (for example) are officiated, I believe it is a combination of the interpretation of the rules and something else that inhibits officials from calling a game evenly and resisting making 50-50 calls during key moments. Perhaps it is in the hiring, or perhaps it is in their management or something else.

While the SPTRs are universally poor and don’t seem to be specifically anti-UCLA to me, I still see a big difference in the lack of calls we get in our favor at Pauley (in general) and the number of calls going for the home team in much louder arenas like Mac Court. I’m curious if others see this the same way or I’m just so biased towards my Bruins that I can’t see clearly.

Especially with the number of “fans” who don’t bother showing up to many games or sit on their hands for 95% of the game. Maybe I’m just bitter since I can’t afford the $$$ to get great seats, but I’ve been saying the same thing since I stood courtside for every game as a student back in the days of Pooh, Don, and Trevor (Wilson, not Ariza, for all you you who are too young to remember the wonderful Walt Hazzard era).