The Aggies had won the game. And Range, at least for the rest of this season, lost his job - but not because he missed the call. Oh, he missed it, all right. Like an air ball. Range's bigger transgression was trying to resurrect debate as a televised NCAA sport.
Imperfect calls are basketball's bread and butter.
Imperfect calls are what gave us the Abe Lemons and Eddie Sutton Show two decades ago. What he should have done was gather up his two partners, inform them of what his faulty eyesight had wrought and then perform a Watkins-like sprint out of town. As chief of the officiating crew, Range had a duty. If not to make the right call, then to at least roll credits. Instead, he turned the matter into a town-hall meeting.