Greg Gard should be furious over Big Ten officials' call in Purdue vs. Indiana

The Indiana Hoosiers handed the Purdue Boilermakers their fourth loss in a row in a stunning 73-58 victory. It was another Big Ten collapse, a day after Wisconsin fell apart against the Oregon Ducks. The Hoosiers outscored Purdue 48-21 in the second half and pulled off a big win to keep their tournament chances alive. This would be a natural comparison for the Badgers to make on the game, but it was a Big Ten referring decision that got Wisconsin fans up in arms.

A Purdue player took a groin shot vs. Indiana with no foul called, highlighting how badly officials missed the call against Kamari McGee

Anthony Leal, while getting up, kicked Caleb Furst in the groin, and it was called a foul on the floor, but when the refs went to the monitor, they took the foul away and said, "Play on!" Now, wait a minute. It was just a few games ago that Kamari McGee accidentally hit Trey Kaufman-Renn in the groin while trying to slip around a screen, and no foul was called. The refs then went to the monitor and ejected him with a flagrant-2 call. The reasoning was essentially: "The letter of the law says groin contact is a flagrant-2."

Greg Gard said that the officials told them that they had to follow the rulebook, and basically, they had to call it a flagrant-2 because of where the contact occurred. Intent wasn't really the reason, but the contact itself was. (If you want to watch the video of the Kamari McGee ejection, click here.)

This is ridiculous! If that's the rule, how can officials see this Indiana replay with a more blatant contact to the groin and go - "It was just a whoopsie. Play on! No foul!" There is either a rule or there's not a rule. If the reason they gave Gard was that they had to abide by the rulebook, how can this not be part of the same rulebook, in the same conference, against the same team? Gard should be furious.