Want better refs? Let's play on Sunday

Saturday night in Hanover, there were moments I thought Glen Miller might need to be restrained by an assistant coach. It appeared as if he might commit a felony against an official.

From my vantage point, Miller had a legitimate beef with these particular referees.

While Penn and the Ivy League cannot necessarily train or hire better referees, better officials can be used if league games were not religiously played on Saturday nights.

This past Saturday, 137 Division I basketball games were played. Despite the best efforts of Ivy League Director Jeff Orleans and basketball coordinator Mickey Crowley, the Ivy League simply is not going to get the best officials on Saturday nights.

"Probably 20 of the conferences are at the will of the other 12," Orleans said. "There are just not enough really good officials and it has become harder and harder to get the level of officiating you want."

While Miller was not one to differentiate between the quality of Friday and Saturday officials, he did note that "you are more likely to get a Big East or A-10 official on a Friday night."

With that in mind, the Ivy League should experiment with other dates for basketball games than the traditional Friday night/Saturday night lineup.

Whereas 274 teams played at some point on Saturday, only 18 played on Friday and 42 on Sunday this past weekend. Games are bound to have better officiating when the demand for referees is lower.

There are additional advantages to a Friday-Sunday calendar over the current system. Players would have an additional day to rest, potentially raising the level of play for the second game of the weekend. Teams would have one more day to break down tape from the previous game. Lastly, given the smaller number of games on Sunday, there is the potential for more games to be broadcast on television.

There are potential drawbacks to this suggestion as well. Would fans also appreciate the day off or would they be less likely to attend Sunday games?

While the extra day of rest would be beneficial to the athlete, would the extra day in a hotel bed be detrimental to the student? And is it worth the schools footing the bill for all of this?

I do not know the answer to any of these questions, which is precisely the point. I give kudos to Orleans for keeping the topic relevant and even experimenting a bit. In 2005, Harvard and Dartmouth traveled to Cornell and Columbia in for a Saturday/Sunday series.

"The consensus of coaches was that they did not prefer it," according to Orleans. However, a Saturday/Sunday trip is not all that different from a Friday/Saturday trip.

Even though Miller has not put much thought into the idea - "because nothing changes in the Ivy League," he said - this does not mean the conference cannot change. Orleans admitted that the issue is open to discussion.

The Ivy League should continue to experiment, because tradition is not everything. Friday-Sunday weekends may not happen in the immediate or even the distant future, but it may be in the best interest of the league, its players, and its criminal record, to try something new.

Matt Meltzer is a senior Political Science major from Glen Rock, N.J. His e-mail address is meltzerm@sas.upenn.edu.

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