Butler vs. Duke

I think we all know there was only one man for the job...

The NCAA does not care about where the officials work during the season and I don't think they should. They only care about who graded out the best during the season and in the tournament games. Finding a crew of officials for the championship game who: (1) either worked both conferences or didn't work at all for both conferences involved and (2) are rated highly enough to work a national championship game? Pretty difficult. Picking the three who did the best during the tournament? Still hard, but this time it's because there is a good sized group of officials skilled enough to work the Final Four. I honestly don't know if there are guys good enough for the Final Four who worked in the Horizon. Maybe there are.

Besides, even if Duke didn't get any calls last night those guys would still get plenty of Duke and other ACC games. Coaches in the big conferences want to see the top level officials because these guys are known quantities. It's kind of a case of better the devil you know. And even if they didn't get any more ACC games there would be more than enough offers from the Big East, Big Ten, etc., to fill their officiating schedules.