High school basketball fans riding the referees

The other night at the high school basketball game I was covering, some of the fans were doing what fans do, riding the officials for every call that did not go in their team's favor. Nothing new about that. It's happened everywhere basketball has been played since 1891. There are probably some people who go to games for the sole purpose of giving the referees a hard time.
What struck me as odd about what happened the other night was that their team was winning by 20 points with about two minutes left and this was still going on.
Maybe I'm missing the point here (and if I am, can somebody please explain it to me) but if your team is winning big, how much could bad officiating be hurting it?
If you're up by 20 with two minutes left, does it really matter if the referee blew a call?
If you win by 20 or if you win by 50, it still counts the same in the standings, doesn't it?

 

If someone said "Taradiddle" to you every day, would you buy a bullhorn and say:

"TARADIDDLE YOURSELF!!!!"

 

I covered a game this weekend where the road team lost, though they should have won because it was the better team. But, they shot like 3-of-13 in the fourth quarter and the other team made every thing it tossed up.

So, after the game, a fan walks up to me and says, "Make sure you get a line in about those officials." Yeah, it's the officials that caused your team to shoot 3-of-13 in the final quarter. One of these days, I'll gather up the gall to say these things. Maybe on my last day as a sports writer.

 

This is why you don't blow a gasket over 99 percent of parent calls/letters/e-mails. For every legitimate complaint, there's 100 yells of "THAT'S THREE SECONDS! CALL IT BOTH WAYS! YOU DIDN'T CALL A TRAVEL ON JOHNNY SUPERSTAR'S JUMP STEP!"

Parents: Can't live with 'em, can't quietly dispose of the bodies.

 

High school fans are morons. They bitch at every whistle, regardless of the foul count and free throw differential.

 

We use three officials in Michigan at high school games, and still I wonder why the scorer's table even bothers to introduce the officials.

The fans are just going to refer to them as ref, ref and ref.

 

THREE SECONDS! HEY, THREE SECONDS!

HEY, REF, YOU'RE MISSING A GOOD GAME.

 

I've got a rope.

 

It's just as bad at lower level Division I hoops games. I wanted to strangle some douchebag bitch in the stands at UNC Asheville a couple of weeks ago. Her team's up 30 points and she wouldn't let up. HAND CHECK!! CALL THE HAND CHECK!!! She had the most unbelievable, shrill, piercing voice. Put on my iPod to drown her out.

SP is right. I'm convinced some people go to games simply to ride the refs.

 

My personal record for hearing:

"CALL IT BOTH WAYS!"

15 seconds into a game after the first foul called.

 

I was taunted by a student section for about half a game one night: "PAaaaaaaaaapppeeerr Boooooyyyy."

 

That's an interesting twist.