I missed most of the first quarter of the game. 

At the end of Q1 Lions were up by 2. 

The second quarter was full of energetic play from both teams. The Lions seemed to be struggling with shot selection, this resulted in a lot of turnovers from them. Despite this they still managed to end q2 up 8 points.

Then it all started to get a little strange.

The Lions were displaying a lot of hussle at the start of the third but they were struggling to get anything to fall. They were making the game look like hard work but they were managing to keep the lead. Right up until the dying seconds of the third quarter. A buzzer beater from the Sharks put them in the lead, except it wasn’t a buzzer beater. The ball was still in the players hand when the shot clock ran out. And there is video evidence to show that. 

Unfortunately the BBL does not routinely record games so the referees do not have the option of checking the video replay.

Q4 started with 3 questionable called going against the Lions and it didn’t improve from there . NO calls were made against the Sharks in the entire forth quarter, in fact no calls were made against them in the last 14 minutes of the game.

Realistically no team is going to play 14 minutes and not foul. I can tell you as someone who was there, that the Sharks did foul but for some reason the referees were just not interested in that.

I have completed the basic referee course. It gave me more respect for referees as it is a lot harder to make the calls when the pressure is on but there is no excuse for the bad calls and no calls made in the last quarter of that game.

Amazingly the Lions were keeping it close, the score never really seemed to be representing the flow of the game. But then in the last 30 seconds the Sharks took and kept the lead.

I have no ill will towards the Sharks or their fans but I really hope that the three referees from that game are ashamed of themselves. The BBL really need to start looking at the quality of the referees and the calls they make.