What we’re talking about here is a judgement call, and in my judgement, the officials got the call wrong.

I’m not a basketball official, but I’ve covered enough games, both college and pro, during my 30-plus years as sportswriter, that I think I know the difference between a foul on the floor and a foul in the act of shooting.

In my opinion, Portland’s Alec Wintering was fouled by San Diego’s Dennis Kramer while in the act of shooting with 10 seconds to play in Saturday’s West Coast Conference at the Chiles Center. The basket should have counted, the game should have been tied at 63-63, and Wintering should have gone to the foul line with a chance to give the Pilots the lead.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, the foul was ruled to have occurred before the shot, Wintering went to the line with his team trailing 63-61, and missed the front end of a one-and-one situation.

San Diego’s Johnny Dee grabbed the rebound, got fouled, made both free throws with 7.4 seconds remaining, and the Toreros hung on from there for a 65-63 victory.

As I made way toward the Portland dressing room after the game, I heard some interesting comments.

“The Pilots got robbed,” one fan said. 

“One official called the basket good, and then the lead official overruled him,” another one said.

If I could have talked to the officials after the game, maybe I would have heard something that would have changed my thinking about whether they made the correct call or not, but I doubt it.

Even when I worked for the daily newspaper in town, it was rare to talk to officials after any game — Pilots, Vikings, Beavers, Ducks or Blazers. That’s because, one, officials generally aren’t available to the media after games, and, two, in the rare instances when officials are available, it’s only because something bizarre happened during the game and needs some clarification from an official.

There was nothing bizarre about the Wintering play. He was fouled going to the basket, but was he fouled before, during, or after he went into his shooting motion?

In my opinion, the foul occurred after he went into his shooting motion, but that’s clearly not how it was called.

I should mention, too, that I was sitting at the upper press table, not the court side table where Barry Tompkins and Jarron Collins were calling the game for Root Sports. I was on the same said of the court as Tompkins and Collins, the side closest to where Wintering drove to the hoop, so I had a clean view. But I wasn’t close enough to see precisely when contact occurred or to confirm if one official called the basket good and then was overruled by another.

As the ball went through the net, the official nearest the play signaled that the foul had occurred on the floor and that Wintering would be shooting a one-and-one.

I was stunned.

So were Tompkins and Collins.

Was it a good call?

“I’m going to have to look at it,” Pilots coach Eric Reveno said. “I don’t know.”

Reveno, always the diplomat.

“What I’ve got to do is focus on what we can do to not be in that situation and what we can do so we don’t leave it in the referees’ hands,” Reveno said. “That’s my job. My job is to put us in position so we win without worrying about the ambiguity of whatever could happen. It’s not very productive to worry about whether it was a good call or a bad call.”

This game did not get away from the Pilots with 10 seconds to play.

The turning point came in the opening of the second half when the Pilots made 1 of 10 shots from the floor with two turnovers and San Diego went on a 13-3 run to turn a one-point halftime deficit into a 54-45 lead.

“We were getting good shots, but we weren’t able to convert them,” Reveno said. “Of their 17 turnovers, we had 13 steals. When you have 13 steals, your offensive woes will normally take care of themselves, but we weren’t able to convert.”

Fatigue also may have been a issue for the Pilots, coming off Thursday’s 114-110 triple overtime victory against BYU.

Junior center Thomas van der Mars, who had 27 points and 18 rebounds in 47 minutes Thursday, had only two points and two rebounds in 18 minutes Saturday. And junior shooting guard Bobby Sharp, who knocked down 8 of 13 shot from 3-point range against BYU, made only 1 of 5 shots from beyond the arc against San Diego.

The Pilots (12-9, 4-5 WCC) got some solid minutes from Riley Barker, who finished with 10 points and a season-high eight rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench, and Ryan Nicholas added eight points and 11 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough.

“It’s a disappointing result,” Reveno said. “I felt it was going to be a challenge. I talked to the guys about it being an ‘all-heart’ game. We just had to dig deep and find the energy. I thought the guys answered the bell as well as they could.”

Saturday’s game closed out the first half of league play for the Pilots, who return to action with games Wednesday at San Francisco and Saturday at Santa Clara.

“I’m really concerned about how we’re playing,” Reveno said. “We’ve got to keep improving. This league is good. Every coach in the league can talk about close games his team has lost, but I don’t think there’s a lot of productivity in that.

“I think we’re a better team and you could easily point to some games where we could have a better record, but at this point we’re just trying to finish it out strong.”

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