Peter Ackerman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
In 2024, a high school basketball team in New Jersey considered pursuing legal action after getting robbed by the refs in a playoff game. They recently got a shot at redemption against the team they lost to, and the player who was at the center of the botched call took full advantage by winning things in the closing seconds.
Refs who work NBA and NCAA games have plenty of trouble making the correct call on a consistent basis, so it’s only natural that problem is also going to cause some issues during high school basketball games.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t a single place in the United States where instant replay is harnessed for high school basketball. With that said, a few states have experimented with the technology for football games, including New Jersey, which adopted it in 2018 before reversing course after a couple of controversial reviews caused more problems than they solved during the 2021 season.
That brings us to what happened in The Garden State last year when the boy’s basketball teams at Manasquan and Camden faced off in the semifinals of the Group 2 playoffs to determine who would earn a spot in the championship game.
It appeared Manasquan had done exactly that when Griffin Linstra grabbed an offensive board that should have given his squad a 47-46 win as the clock expired. However, the refs waved the shot off to hand the victory to their opponents despite video evidence that showed they made the wrong call (Camden rolled to a 69-50 victory over Newark Arts to win the state title).
This wasn’t even close. Manasquan got robbed! pic.twitter.com/RUogV8jw8K
— Coach Mike Rice (@CoachMikeRice) March 6, 2024
The NJSIAA, the governing body that oversees high school sports in the state, eventually admitted Manasquan got robbed but declined to change the outcome of the game. The school weighed taking legal action before waving the white flag, and the incident inspired lawmakers to introduce a bill that would mandate the use of instant replay during playoff games.
We were thankfully spared another scenario where it was needed when the two schools once again met in the semifinals on Wednesday, but we did get a pretty poetic moment courtesy of Linstra, who made a lay-up with 2.7 seconds to go to give his team the 44-43 lead that stood after Camden missed a half-court heave following his missed free throw on an and-one attempt.
You love to see it.