Louisville coach Jeff Walz rips ACC officiating & Virginia Tech fans would agree with him

Following Virginia Tech's 74-63 win over Boston College Sunday afternoon in Blacksburg, Hokies head coach Kenny Brooks expressed his feelings about how teams have defended his start center, Elizabeth Kitley. Everything the Tech coach said was 100% correct about how physical teams defend her by the bump on her forehead following the game.

While that was going on at Cassell Coliseum, more questionable officiating was happening in Western New York. Louisville led Syracuse, 72-71, with less than five seconds left in the game when the Orange grabbed an offensive rebound. With a foul to give, Louisville's Olivia Cochran fouled Dyaisha Fair to disrupt the play and it was a logical decision with the Cardinals having fouls to give. The referee called an intentional foul and Fair made two free throws for the one-point win. After the game, Louisville coach Jeff Walz let his feelings known about the call.

"It's a god-awful call. It's absolutely terrible officiating; they should be embarrassed," Walz said. "Someone has to start holding the officials accountable. That call was the worst call I've seen in my 29 years of coaching. If we're going to start calling that, every foul at the end of the game when a team has to foul is intentional ... every foul is ... we all know it is. But to call it in a one-point game with 2.5 seconds left, it's awful, it's atrocious, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing for our league."

I'm not a person that is going to rip officiating as it's a hard enough job for any sport at any level. However, Brooks and Walz, two of the better coaches in the conference, rarely say anything about officiating, and for both to speak out on the same day says a lot. Walz is correct that at some point, the officials do need to be accountable, just like coaches are.

Virginia Tech plays at Louisville on Sunday and I'm sure the two coaches will have plenty to discuss before the game. We feel your pain Coach Walz.