ESPN NCAA Tournament 2008

LOS ANGELES -- Referee Michael Eggers was coming back to the court for the second half of the Pac-10 semifinal between USC and UCLA on Friday, a day after calling the most controversial foul in the conference tournament.

On Thursday, Eggers called a fifth foul on Arizona State's Jeff Pendergraph, whistling him for an over-the-back call on USC's Davon Jefferson, negating Pendergraph's slam dunk that would have tied the game at 57-57 with 16.9 seconds remaining.

And 24 hours later, sitting in Tempe, Ariz., Arizona State coach Herb Sendek was hot. He wondered how Eggers could be working the semifinal game while the Sun Devils' Pac-10 tourney was over.

Has controversial officiating been a widespread problem beyond the Pac-10 this season?

"The state of college basketball for officials is in a slump," said Dick Paparo, an official from 1980-2000 who worked six Final Fours.

Officiating certainly has been a hot topic all season, but the debate has gathered momentum with numerous end-of-game calls that have been both questionable and prominent.

This season has been an especially thankless job for coordinators and officials across the country. The season started with officiating at the center of attention, with a renewed purpose to discipline coaches with technical fouls for leaving the coaches' box, cursing or demonstrating poor bench decorum. The NCAA announced that officials who handled this chore correctly would be given preferential treatment for NCAA tournament assignments and advancement.

While the bench-decorum emphasis was an early story, the end-of-game situations seemed to dominate the chatter throughout the season.

Pac-10 officiating has taken a negative hit this season after controversial late-game calls against ASU (versus Washington State) and then multiple calls that went for UCLA in two late-season games: Stanford (a foul called against the Cardinal's Lawrence Hill with 2.5 seconds left) and Cal (Josh Shipp's baseline shot that some said was taken from behind the backboard).

"I don't like to see [the controversy] at all," said Bill McCabe, the Pac-10 coordinator of officiating. "I'm not sure I'm smart enough to know why."

Georgetown benefited from questionable end-of-game calls against West Virginia (actually, a non-goaltending call on a blocked shot by Patrick Ewing Jr.) and Villanova (a foul called on the Wildcats 80 feet from the basket with 0.1 second left in a tie game).

Georgetown coach John Thompson III said the end-of-game calls simply get more scrutinized because they are seen more often on television.

"I don't think the officiating has changed; the emphasis has changed," Thompson said. "Just the coverage of calls, of questionable calls, has gotten so much more attention.

"I think you should call what you see, no matter how much time is on the clock."

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins agreed, saying there shouldn't be a difference in the officiating in the final 30 seconds and the first 30 seconds. That opinion was shared by Art Hyland, the Big East coordinator of officials, who supported referee Bob Donato's call at the end of the Villanova game by saying that if there was contact, no matter the time, a foul should be called.

"I'm old-school," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "I like the guys that have a feel for a game. I like that, but I understand why they have to do what they do now. I have no problem with Bobby Donato's intent on that call. I know Bobby is a professional, and he's going to call it until the last second. That's what he's going to do, and I understand why he has to. I just wish, overall, that they could go back to just having a feel, but I don't know if we can. I think that ship has sailed."

So what's wrong with the officiating? Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg pointed to fatigue. When officials work too many games in too many nights, it can catch up with them. Officials are independent contractors, so they can work as often as they want and for as many leagues as they want.

"I think they're worn out and tired at this time of the season, and if it's affecting their judgment, then they're working too many games," Greenberg said. "These guys will work ACC and then the Big South, the CAA. There is an arrogance with the new rules, too."

Greenberg said there is also an issue of conferences' trying to develop a new generation of officials, saying that veteran officials like Tim Higgins and Jim Burr can't work forever.

Paparo agrees with Greenberg.

"Travel is killing all these officials," he said. "It's the same guys refereeing all these games. It's an excuse that they'll give you that they're independent contractors. When I refereed in the ACC, we were all restricted as to how many games we could work.

"Everybody says you can't do that now, but hey, we did do it and everybody went along with it."

The argument that officials are tired seems to have merit. But can't officials simply miss calls? Is that what happened for Eggers, Donato and Kevin Brill? (Brill called the foul on Stanford for Hill's block on Darren Collison that sent the game into overtime.)

Should an official be singled out and criticized if he makes a questionable call, like a coach or a player who is questioned for poor decisions during a game? Gonzaga coach Mark Few said he doesn't understand why it should be odd to say an official, like a coach or a player, has simply had a bad season.

"Coaches are held accountable at this level, and so should officials," said Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy, who sent a tape to the SEC after he said officials blatantly missed a foul call at the end of the Jan. 9 Tennessee-Ole Miss game in Knoxville that the Rebels lost in the final possession.

McCabe, the Pac-10 officiating coordinator, said he had no problem with Eggers' working the UCLA-USC game after making the questionable call at the end of the USC-Arizona State quarterfinal game.

"Do you think I ought to take him out?" McCabe said at halftime of the Bruins-Trojans Pac-10 semifinal at the Staples Center. "There was contact. There are 59-and-a-half minutes of great officiating, and then there's a call at the end of the game [that gets questioned].

"I've always felt that you sit someone down if they misapply the rule, not a judgment call."

We'll see if there are any debatable calls -- judgment or otherwise -- in the NCAA tournament.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com. College basketball writer Dana O'Neil contributed to this story.