A grotesque situation for Irish basketball. Two teams from Division One (the second division behind the National League) were invited to replay the last three tenths of a second of their play-off match. “This is unprecedented for this sport and other sports in this country,” underline our colleagues from the Irish Examiner, who report on the affair.
On March 23, the Limerick Sport Eagles beat the Portlaoise Panthers (80-78) after a controversial end to the match. On the last action and while there was a tie, a foul on Jason Killeen was called at the buzzer. The Eagles thus scored two free throws and the match ended there. An error, because there was 0.3 seconds remaining at the time of the foul.
Initially, the National League (NLC) committee indicated that the result would remain as is, cannot be retrospectively annulled. The Panthers still had the opportunity to appeal to the National League Appeals Committee (NAC). This body ruled that the free throws had been correctly awarded, but that the referees and the match commissioner had made an error by not putting a fraction of a second back in the clock and by not authorizing the resumption of the match. She said the match should be replayed in its entirety, to avoid “grave injustice”. Finally, the NLC ruled: only the last 0.3 seconds of the match will be replayed, “to guarantee the integrity of the competitions”.
Basketball Ireland has since indicated that the appeal offered to the Portlaoise Panthers was an “error”. For their part, the Eagles thought they had booked their ticket to the semi-final against Tolka Rovers and had spent a good part of the week preparing for it. In a statement released Friday morning, Eagles president Trevor Moore explained that his team was not officially notified of the appeal and did not have the opportunity to attend the appeal hearing. He now considers himself “wronged” in this affair. “We did not commit any wrongdoing in this matter and we should not be penalized,” Moore said.
“Basketball Ireland will finalize the details of this meeting in due course,” said the federation in a press release published on Tuesday. How to prepare for 0.3 seconds? One thing is certain, the match will resume with the score 80-78 in favor of the Eagles. The Panthers will have only one action to try to equalize… or even win.
