Mark Byington calls for consistency from college basketball officials

Now almost through his first regular season as the head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores, Mark Byington has started to get more comfortable with the conference’s officials. Now, he’s calling for more consistency from the officials around college basketball.

Byington’s comments came following his team’s close loss to Tennessee. He was asked about the seeming disparity in the number of fouls called from one half to another, prompting him to call for games to be called the same regardless of the moment in the game.

“It’s gonna take me a while to probably think about it,” Mark Byington said. “I’m not dodging your question. You know, I could just say for anybody, you always want consistency and, you know, just let it be the way it is from the first minute to the last minute.”

At halftime, Vanderbilt led 44-31. Then, in the second half, when how the game was officiated seemed to be changing, the script completely flipped. Tennessee outscored Vanderbilt 50-32 in the second half to come from behind to win.

In the loss to Tennessee, the Commodores were called for 21 fouls while the Volunteers had 13 fouls. That helped Tennessee shoot 22 free throws compared to just 14 by Vanderbilt in a game that was decided by just five points. At the same time, Mark Byington didn’t want to comment specifically on this game.

“But I can’t judge that in this game. You know, there was a lot. We got in foul trouble early and it hurt having my guys in foul trouble,” Byington said. “But at the same time, you know, these refs do a good job.”

Back in January, it was Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes who had some interesting comments to make on the officiating in the SEC.

“We can throw out freedom of movement. That rule’s gone. I mean they’ve made a big emphasis on it. I mean, I can say that both ways. I can say that against us. I mean they’re gonna let, I can show you tape of us, everybody, guys coming off screen, arms are wrapped around them. If that’s the way they’re going to call the NCAA Tournament, that’s the way they’ve got to call this. And we’ve always said, I’ve always believed when you get in the NCAA Tournament from an official standpoint, they don’t replay no calls, normally. So, they let guys, they let it go. If that’s the way it’s going to be. That’s good. So we can all adjust to it,” Barnes said.

“But what’s really tough is when you’re in a league where they’re calling this and that. And I can tell you from experience that tournament is called different. Which I think it’s great and if we’re gonna do this now, we all have to adjust to it. But that rule is, we can forget that rule because there’s not a lot of movement out there, and I would say the same thing about the way we try to play defense.”

With the loss, Vanderbilt fell to 17-8 on the season and 5-7 in SEC play. That ranks 10th in the current conference standings with six games remaining. Now, Mark Byington and Vanderbilt are looking to bounce back in that incredibly challenging conference. On Wednesday, the Commodores travel to Kentucky, looking for consistent officiating in the best basketball conference.