AN EXPERIMENT IN TOE TOUCHING PHOTOGRAPHY
Left angle is from a location approximating center court above and behind the line
Center angle is directly above the shoe.
Right angle is from in front of the shoe.
The shoe and the "line" remained in exactly the same positions.
Cameras and angles obviously can make a foot look like it is touching a line when it is not.
STOP THE PRESSES - I FOUND MY DVR RECORDED A REPLAY OF THE BAMA-LSU TOE JAM AT HALFTIME OF THE AUBURN UT GAME. HERE ARE THE PICS.
Three screen shots of the toe "touching" the line in three resolutions.
The camera that caught this shot was in front of the foot.
It was at wide angle.
I shot a digital picture of the DVR image on my SONY WEGA HD TV.
This is the exact size of the image on the 36" Sony
Notice the way the line bleeds and the black shoe bleeds.(adjacent pixels contain some of the black color and shadow)
This is very very close but I discern a miniscule space between the shoe and the line in the picture. On the HD TV it is more distinct.
The SEC quarter finals were not shot or broadcast in High Definition. This means the resolution is less than half as good as high definition.
Note the shadow/bleed in front of the right shoe.
Between the shadow, the bleed, and wide angle of the camera shot it is almost impossible to tell. It was that close.
I think that's a ridiculous difference for officials to make a call that decides a game.
In the UCONN-Rutgers BEast Championship a similar call was made.
This time I was able to watch the same replay the officals saw on that ridiculously small monitor on my 36" Sony in High Definition from the ESPNHD feed on cable.
On my monitor it was clear that the toe was NOT touching the line.
The officials said it was and called it a 2 point shot.
They were clearly wrong.
I don't know if their monitor was High Def or not but if officials are going to review this "touching" the line stuff that closely they should have adequate monitors on which to view the proximity of the foot to the line.
Read the responses from officials on
The Officiating Forum and this thread on
The SUmmiTT for more views on this controversy.
Thanks to the good folks at the excellent
WOMEN'S HOOPS WEBLOG for the link.
IT HAPPENED AGAIN - in the SEC Men's Tourney
South Carolina hit a 3 to tie the game.
The officials consulted this tiny monitor:
and decided they couldn't tell for sure it was a three
and called the game for Ole Miss
post your comments below.
