Referee Anti-Power Rankings: January 27, 2025
Pictured (L to R): Pat Driscoll, James Breeding and Brian O’Connell
My favorite part of the blog…the Referee Anti-Power Rankings, where we collect the absolute worst of the worst officials from the Big East. Before we start, a moment to do something that will be an absolute rarity in these parts…we give props to an official. Normally he’d be a permanent resident on this list, but we’ll cut him some slack this one time. Nathan Farrell, congratulations, you’re the official of the week! What’d he do to deserve this honor? He turned his back on Danny Hurley prompting a moment of honesty from Hurley, as he yelled “Don’t turn your back on me, I’m the best fucking coach in the fucking country.” Thanks Dan for that gem, and congratulations to Nate on receiving the rarest honor this blog can bestow.
Let’s get to it:
Pat Driscoll - The worst now and forever until further notice.
James Breeding - Universally reviled by fans. I have to assume coaches dislike him as well. Inexplicable that this man is still allowed to commit crimes against humanity.
Brian O’Connell - The Notorious B.O.C. Slowly becoming as universally reviled among Big East fans as Breeding is. Most recently seen absolutely murdering the Xavier @ St. John’s game in MSG, mostly to the benefit of SJU.
Tony Chiazza - I always want to give my fellow Itais the benefit of the doubt, but Chiazza shows me the error of those ways. Tony’s never met a game he couldn’t butcher.
(tie) Lamar Simpson, Don Daily, and Lucas Santos - The members of the crew that absolutely screwed St. John’s in the Bahamas by not checking that the play clock started on time during the Baylor game-winning shot.
Paul Szelc - I’ll be honest, I do not know Paul from Adam. He appears to be mostly a B1G ref, who does a little ACC, A little Big East, and a spot duty across few other conferences, but he’s the 3rd ranked guy in KenPom’s officials ranking, but he calls 1.7 fouls MORE per game than the average official per KenPom’s new FAA metric. For comparison, this writer’s favorite ref, Roger Ayers, has a FAA of -1.8, meaning he calls 1.8 fouls FEWER per game than Szelc. A total delta of 3.5. So just for being that trigger happy, Paul, you’ve made the list.
Matt Potter - This guy is an abomination. Should probably learn how to count, because his lack of travel calls are pretty fucking wild. He’s done 11 Big East games so far this year, by far his most in any conference (6 ACC games his 2nd most-frequent). I’m going to say that when a referee can’t get SEC, B1G and Big12 games, they’re probably an abomination. BE and ACC left with the scraps officiating wise, and Potter falls into that category.
Jeff Anderson - the high knees are cute and all, but I’d glad trade them—and the hilarious Twitter account paying homage to the high knees—for a referee who knows the rules and can handle the spotlight without making it about himself. Jeff calls 1.1 more fouls per game than the average official according to KenPom’s new “FAA” metric on his referee’s rating page—one of the largest overcalling margins in the country.
Tommy Morrisey - One of the officials in that poorly officiated UConn @ ’nova thriller. He’s so bad, he can’t even book quality games, leaving him 52nd on KenPom’s officiating rankings. Other than a stray Big12 game this year, he has not officiated any high major conference games outside the Big East: 9 ACC games, 3 CAA games, 2 A10 games, and 1 CUSA game. He can barely manage to book Big East games, getting only 4 of those, with the other 3 being games involving bottom-half of the league teams…not exactly primetime.
Roger Ayers - Look, Ayers is a very good official. He has one of, if not the lowest, FAA per KenPom, at -1.8, meaning he calls 1.8 fewer fouls per game than an average ref. However, he’s a symptom of the problem with officiating these days. Unlike the venerable Ken Pomeroy, I take no joy in a man officiating games for 31 days straight, traveling everywhere from Clemson to San Francisco, including many stops in between. Just look at this small sample of his itinerary:
11/22/24 - Duke at Arizona - Tucson, AZ, 10:30pm MT
11/23/24 - NIU at DePaul - Chicago, IL, 5:00pm CT. Think about this. He could not have been out of the arena until 1:30 am. Let’s assume straight back to his hotel, he’s in bed at 2am. Let’s assume he arrives an hour before tip time in Chicago, so he’s there at 4:00pm CT/3:00pm MT. Let’s just assume all goes perfect for him and the airport isn’t far from Wintrust, so let’s call it 90 minutes from landing to being at Wintrust. that brings us back to 2:30pm CT/1:30pm MT. It’s roughly a 3-hour flight from Tucson to Chicago, so he had to take off at 11:30am CT/10:30am MT. Let’s assume 2 hours pre-flight for getting to the airport and clearing security. So now we’re at 9:30am CT/8:30am MT. Let’s assume he needs an hour to pack up shower and leave the hotel, so now we’re at 8:30am CT/7:30am MT. So he’s traveling halfway across the country on 5.5 hours of sleep—at best. This is just a rough estimate. Obviously if he can sleep on a plane, he’d have a bit more shut-eye. But traveling is exhausting anyway, so flying and working mere hours after landing on 5.5 hours sleep + whatever shut eye he got on the plane…it’s no wonder why these officials struggle. It’s simply not possible to be at your best under these circumstances, no matter what you do.
11/24/24 - Charleston at URI, Kingston, RI, 12:00noon ET. So after that crazy travel from Tucson to Chicago…did Ayers even stay the night in Chicago?! Probably not. He likely was done at the arena at 8:00pm CT/9:00pm ET. If he straight to the airport, and it’s 30 mins there now we’re at 8:30pm CT/9:00pm ET. Let’s say he cut it close and gets there just an hour before his flight, that’s now 9:30pm CT'/10:30pm ET. That’s a 2 hour flight non-stop. So he lands at 11:30pm CT/12:30am ET. Figure an hour to get to his hotel, now it’s 12:30am CT/1:30am ET. Figure an hour to get ready in the morning, and arrive an hour early, and now you’re looking at needing to be up at 10am. So at least he got 8-hours of sleep, but that’s if everything went perfectly for him. And one night of 8 hour sleep after a day that involved flying from Tucson-Chicago-reffing a game-flight to Providence is obviously inadequate.
11/25/24 - Quinnipiac at SLU, St. Louis, MO, 8:00 PM CT Flies back half-way across the country, but at least he left himself some more time.
After all of that Ayers took it “easy” the next 5 days. Officiating 2 Player’s Era games in Vegas 11/26-27, then driving down to Palm Springs where he officiated 11/28-29, and then back to Vegas for the final day of the Player’s Era on 11/30.
There’s so much more to Ayer’s 31 day journey that I recommend you check out in KenPomeroy’s article, which rates the various trips based on difficulty. It’s truly eye-opening.
HONORABLE MENTION - Ron Groover, Brent Hampton, Tony Henderson, Nate Hall, Evon Burroughs, Wally Rutecki