Please Explain To Me How This Wasn't a Foul!

On Monday night, a night usually reserved on my television for wrestling, my screen was invaded by the most exciting game of college basketball I’ve seen since possibly ever. It was an Elite Eight matchup between million-time champions UConn and the lady-bears of Baylor to determine which team would make it into the final four of the much-embattled NCAA Women’s Tournament.

It was professed by the god that this would be an incredible and physical fight to the finish, with most of the attention directed at UConn’s freshman superstar Paige Bueckers, nee Buckets. And certainly, Buckets earned her acclaim, but there was another star shining so bright I am still squinting to see: DiJonai Carrington.

To say that Carrington was wiping the floor with the competition would be doing a disservice to what this woman was doing. It was poetry. It was magic. It was blocking the ball so hard at one point I thought she would dent the floor.

It was clear, to my feeble mind, by the top of the fourth quarter that Baylor was about to pull off the upset and deny UConn and their freshman the chance at another championship. But on a potential game-winning shot from DiJonai Carrington, the woman after whom I will be naming my firstborn, a strange thing happened. The referee vanished into thin air and was unable to see and call a very obvious foul that could have changed the entire outcome of the game.

Let’s look at that a little closer shall we?

And the full-length shot just to be certain?

Even Carrington was confused about whether or not the rules of basketball had changed in the half-second it took for her to attempt to get that shot off and get fouled.

The only answer is it must be me. I must have such poor vision or I must be so miseducated on this game that I cannot properly identify a foul. So I ask all of you humbly to explain to me how this shit was not a foul. Dead ass. Because if it walks like a bear and growls like a bear, it’s a fucking foul.