Burney's Bytes will focus primarily on the local preps sports scene, but will also touch on some college and pro athletics, mostly in regards to athletes who hail and have played high school sports in Oakland County. My goal for the blog is to be conversational and anecdotal, a more relaxed and free formal take on high school athletics than you see in regular game day coverage.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Unfair Circumstances
It's a shame that Bloomfield Hills was deprived of a full-go at it in its quest for an OAA Red boys basketball title in 2014.
It would have been a three-peat for Coach Graves and his "Big 3" of Yante Maten, Armand Cartwright and Khalil Gracey (two with Lahser in 2012 & 2013 and the one they could have won this season). That didn't happen as the Black Hawks, minus Maten, lost to RH Adams Thursday night in the regular season finale, which gave total OAA Red bragging rights back to mighty Clarkston (a team BH beat both times handily this winter) for the eighth year in a row.
Why didn't Maten, arguably the No. 1 big guy in the state, play on Thursday? Well, that's because some ref with an enlarged ego decided to 'T' him up at the end of Bloomfield Hill's victory over C-Town Tuesday for hanging on the rim after a dunk, an infraction if you look at the replay on-line is obviously wrong. In turn, Maten was tossed from that contest and Thursday's affair with Adams with a league-title hanging in the balance due to another suspect technical foul prior in the Clarkston game.
I've seen way too many instances on the hardwood this year when the refs are making it more about them than the kids. And that's wrong. Not to say, the zebras should be letting real things slide. They shouldn't. But to act the way I've seen some this season doing, towards players, coaches and occasionally fans, is upsetting and makes me worry about the manner in which the MHSAA and the state's 'stripes' governing body oversee their officials. It appears to me that there is very little oversight. (I could be mistaken, but judging from what I hear that's what is happening). There's unequivocal consequences and accountability for everybody else, however, they receive a free pass? It doesn't seem right.
Just ask Yante, Coach Graves and the entire BlackHawks nation that boasted by-far the top hoop crew in the OAA Red and the OAA overall for that matter, this year, yet never had the shot with a fully-loaded arsenal to cement it in the record books.
Well said!
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