The NCAA has determined the officiating in the 2023 women's college basketball national championship game "did not meet expectations," as reported by the Associated Press. LSU defeated Iowa 102-85 in the title game to collect its first ever women's basketball national championship.
LSU certainly earned the trophy, but the game's officiating drew significant criticism. There were questionable calls on both teams, and the NCAA said a review conducted by the Pictor Group proved the officiating was less than ideal.
"In the championship game itself, for example, we typically have a performance that I think is 91% historically," Lynn Holzman, NCAA vice president for women's basketball, told the AP. "In that game, the percentage of correct calls was below that, around 88%. That's factually the case."
That 88% matched the officiating from the rest of the tournament, but expectations were higher for the title game.
One of the most controversial calls during the championship game was when Iowa star Caitlin Clark was given a technical foul late in the third quarter after she didn't pass the ball to an official following a foul. That became Iowa's second delay-of-game violation and Clark's fourth foul of the game. At the time just over a minute remained in the third quarter, and Iowa was still in a decent spot to catch up as they only trailed LSU by a score of 73-64.
The NCAA is trying to move forward and improve the quality of officiating, while Holzman emphasized there were no questions about the integrity of the referees who participated in the title game. Their review offered six observations and recommendations to improve training and education.
One of the new rules the NCAA came up with this summer would not have resulted in Clark getting that technical foul. Holzman expressed that she did not want to see the same problems next year, so the NCAA is taking steps to improve.
"Our committee is going to get a specific education about how we evaluate officials and this is what we're looking at," Holzman said. "The committee is going to be trained up."
