Ohio State is still fresh in the memory but there are some golden oldies in the mix:
1978: We are 85-87 to big underdog Western Kentucky in the first round of the NCAAs. Marty Byrnes is driving to the basket off the break as the clock is about to run out. He gets clothes-lines across the arms and force out of bounds. He's strong enough to flip the ball up anyway and kisses it off the glass and in. Tie game and Marty's going to the line to win it with 1 second left. Billy Packer starts shouting at the refs "There's no continuation on college basketball", over and over again. They listen to him and dice to have a conference about it with Marty standing on the line. After about 5 minutes, they announce that the basket doesn't count and Marty and a 1 and 1 to tie. He makes the first but misses the second and we can't get the rebound. Game and season over.
1981: NIT Final. We are leading Tulsa by about 7 midway through the second half when Nolan Richardson calls a time out. He spends the entire time out talking calmly with the officials who call 19 fouls the rest of the game- 18 on Syracuse, fouling out 4/5 of our line up. the one remaining player, Eric Santifer, has the game of his life with 29 points to get us into OT but we run out of gas because we ran out of players and lose 84-86. I've always had a desire to someday win the NIT, (if we are stuck in ti) to wipe that memory away.
1983: An 11-0 SU team goes down to Chapel Hill to play Michael Jordan's North Carolina team. 34 fouls are called on us, 11 on them. On one play a Syracuse player gets knocked to the ground in the paint and loses the ball. UNC gets it and passes to Michael who dunks on the other end. A foul is called on the closest SU player, who didn't touch him. "And One!" We lose 64-87.
1986: We lose to Notre Dame in the Dome 81-85. We try 11 free throws. they attempt 49.
1986: We lose in the NCAAs to Navy. We try 21 free throws. they try 54.
1987: Tip-off classic vs. UNC. Derrick Coleman intercepts an inbounds pass, does a turn-around dribble and drive to the basket for the go-ahead score. Replays show that this takes about 3 seconds. They also show that the clock doesn't move. UNC inbounds and goes the length of the court where a guy, (Chilcott?), makes a buzzer shot to send the game into OT. We lose 93-96. With the 3 seconds taken off the clock all they would have had time for was an 80 foot prayer.
Either the 1987 71-72 game or the 1988 68-69 game vs. Georgetown in the Dome where Rony Seikaly made a free throw that never went up on the scoreboard with no apparent explanation. There was no sign of a lane violation and nothing was announced over the PA or the radio.
A Boston College game in the Dome in the early's. I don't remember the score or who won. i just remember Adrian Autry dribbling along the baseline under the SU goal, (on my end so I had a great view), and stabbing his right foot, clearly out of bounds. the ref runs over and slides to his knees, dramatically positioning to the spot where Autry's foot went down. he put his whistle in his mouth but didn't blow it. Instead, he looked over his shoulder to see if the lay-up went in. it did not and BC got a fast break to the other end. The ref dropped the whistle from his mouth, got up and jogged back down court to a chorus of boos from fans who realized that he hadn't blown his whistle because BC was better off with the fast break.
All the games over the years where Georgetown, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Louisville were allowed to get away with murder because they were fouling on every play and the refs didn't want to call all of them.
