If you have not heard of the Duke lacrosse rape case, let me urge you to find out more about it. It would be a waste of my time to explain the case as it has been done thoroughly at other blogs. Start by reading Robert KC Johnson's case narrative, and continue with basically any and every other post he has made there. Also see John in North Carolina's blog for more people who have responded in impressive and rare fashion to the false charges, incompetent law enforcement, and flat out lies that are disgustingly common in this case.

Johnson has followed the case extremely closely from the start, primarily because he was so disgusted by the behavior of some Duke faculty members known as the "Group of 88". He is meticulous, incredibly well researched, thorough, honest, honorable, and tenacious. I almost would say that I would not like to see KC as my opponent in an argument, but really, the opposite is true. KC is exactly the kind of rival any person of integrity would want. In short, he is exactly the kind person those without integrity would shiver in fear at.

He has exposed shameful behavior of many throughout this case. He has eviscerated Durham district attorney Mike Nifong, the Group of 88, the Durham police, the DNA testers, protesters at Duke holding up signs saying "castrate" those who should be presumed (and are very likely) innocent. KC has also given out well deserved pats on the back to many others, including the student run newspaper The Chronicle, taxi driver Moezeldin Elmostafa (who corroborated an alibi for one of the accused), members of the Duke economics department, and Duke law professor James Coleman.

If you were watching the Duke-Clemson game on Thursday night, you might think Duke got away with one they didn't deserve. You'd be right, but you'd be wrong if you thought it was the first time that had happened.

Against Clemson, the timekeeper did not start the clock when an errant inbounds pass was picked up, meaning that the 4.4 seconds when the shot went through was way too much time. There really should have been 3.5 or so seconds, which would have made Duke's winning shot far too late.

Additionally, the referees did not tell Clemson they were adjusting the clock from 1.8 seconds to 4.4 until just before the play started, leading to Clemson playing more aggressively on the inbound pass and possibly assisting Duke's win.

What is all the more shocking is that Virginia lost a game to Duke in 1997 because of a clock error that was corrected in a different manner. The timekeeping mistake at Clemson differed from the Virginia mistake in that the Clemson (Duke) timekeeper's mistake was only corrected by looking at the time when the shot passed through the basket, giving Duke more time. The Virginia mistake was corrected by timing the entire play and subtracting that from the original time on the clock, giving Virginia less time.

In that 1997 game, Duke tied the game with 11 seconds left when Jeff Capel hit the first of 2 free throws, missing the second. A long pass went to Norman Nolan, ahead of everyone to the Duke basket. He was close enough not even needing to dribble for what would have been a sure layup, but a Duke player got back just barely and fouled him hard enough that he missed the shot. (ALMOST an intentional foul.)

Norman went to the line for two foul shots. He missed the first shot, and Willie Dersch went to the scorer's table to sub in. The ref waved him in, and he made a shooting motion, indicating that he would be coming in for the shooter, Norman. The strategy was to force the game to pause for a few seconds so Virginia could set their defense.

Norman's second shot hit the front of the rim, and barely rolled over and in, leading to the crowd yelling as loudly as they had all night. The timekeeper blew the horn for the officials to allow the substitute in, but they couldn't hear it. The officials gave the ball to Duke, who inbounded to Steve Wojciechowski, who dribbled down through incredulous Virginia players Harold Deane and Norman (and even Dersch, standing with his arms wide in amazement) who were yelling that the sub was supposed to come in.

The clock did not run until Wojo was practically at half court. Wojo drove in and was fouled by Norman during a shot. When the referees (Hartzell, Steed, and Higgins) huddled to sort out the mess, they decided that there were two errors, only one of which was correctable. Despite the fact that one official had waved the sub in, and knew a sub was coming in after the shot, they denied that they could correct that error. The only error to fix was the time on the clock, which when timed by hand put just over a second on the clock (which ended up screwing Virginia even further).

The refs put 0.7 seconds on the clock and Nolan missed a hail mary after Steve Wojo hit two free throws. Duke won by a point.

It really wasn't a time-keepers mistake, since the clock operator was blowing the horn for the substitution. It was a referee's mistake, which they denied until they watched the tape the next day. ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan suspended all 3 for a game later in the season.

In both games is that the officials did not correct, or were not given the leeway to correct the mistake in a fair fashion. The integrity of the game should be the foremost concern. Admitting an "error", (which the ACC also did for the Clemson-Duke game, but just shrugging it off because it is "uncorrectable" makes the officials have active influence on the game, rather than attempting to be impartial observers with a duty to make things right.

Thanks to Peavine Hoolow on http://www.thesabre.com basketball message board for a couple details I had forgotten.