There’s no way to blame the fast whistles by the officiating trio on inexperience or even unfamiliarity. It’s true that it looks worse when a big man reaches in to try to steal a ball than a guard, because everybody’s eyes are on him and the offending limbs are bigger. It’s also true the college game has precious few big men these days because of the lure of the NBA.

But both Valentine and Kitts are veteran officials, having worked plenty of Big Ten and Big East games. And while several were questionable, there was only one really lousy call, made by Valentine at 6:37 in the second half. That’s when Oden launched himself at the basket for a dunk and Georgetown’s Jeff Green had position on the runway. They crashed and just about the time they started to pick themselves up, Valentine blew the whistle. Small wonder he had to think about it for a moment — and got it wrong, anyway.

“They made the calls,” Green said. “I’m just going to, you know, walk away and not say anything.”

If there was a time to raise a stink, it was almost three minutes earlier. Oden was on the Ohio State bench with his third foul and the Hoyas took advantage of his absence to tie the game at 44. They had a nice inside-outside flow to the offense, then a shot went up, Hibbert hooked Buckeye defender Ron Lewis to box out for a rebound and ...

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No. 4.

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In what proved a perfect snapshot of the evening, he headed to the Georgetown bench even as Oden was leaving the scorer’s table to come back in. They crossed paths several times in the lane, and occasionally under the basket.

But that one moment said as much or more about the battle between them as any.

Sad.

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