Steven Pearl blasts ‘zero communication’ from refs after Auburn winner waved off
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Steven Pearl was left fuming after Auburn saw its would-be game-winner waved off by officials on Tuesday night.
But Pearl was fuming alone. The officiating crew in charge of the 90-88 Texas A&M win over the Tigers didn’t talk to him after ruling KeShawn Murphy’s 3-pointer did not beat the buzzer.
“There was zero communication. They didn’t say a word. They just said it was no good and ran off the floor,” Pearl said in the postgame press conference. “I probably wouldn’t want to talk to me in that moment anyway, so I get why they’d run away from me.”
According to local ABC reporter Johnny Congdon, Pearl’s postgame press conference was initially delayed because Auburn officials immediately called the SEC office to discuss the result of the game. During the press conference, Pearl said he didn’t have a “clear understanding” of what the officials saw that he didn’t.
“It’s devastating,” Pearl said. “From the angles that I saw, it looked like the ball was out of his hands on the red light on the scoreboard that we were looking at. I would imagine they had a different angle they were looking at.”
A 9-0 run to end the first half gave Auburn a 10-point lead at the break. Auburn pushed that lead to 16 points with just 13:29 left to play in the game. Texas A&M then exploded, with a 33-6 run to flip a near-20-point deficit into an 11-point lead.
Keyshawn Hall scored 10 straight Auburn points in the final 2 minutes to claw the Tigers back into the game and give them a chance to steal it. Hall finished with 32 points.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
