March Madness is under way and after yesterday’s first round of games the majority of brackets are busted harder than most previous years due to a couple of 14 seeds winning. Inevitably, there were some controversial calls yesterday as there are bound to be with so many teams fighting hard to advance.
To help the referees get calls correct and eliminate some of the controversy and chaos, NCAA officials for both the men’s and women’s tournament will have high-definition instant replay for the first time thanks to DVSport.
DVSport is already known for providing professional and college teams with software packages that allows coaches and players to use tablets and laptops to break down film of themselves or the opponent. The Pennsylvania based company had been doing most of its work in football since experimenting with video replay in certain conferences in 2005. This year, DVSport, which created a basketball-specific replay system in 2010, will have its tech used for the Big Dance.
Kim Jackson, director of basketball operations for DVSport, which pioneered the technology, talked about the big step and believes it could potentially revolutionize the ways officials operate and speed up the process of reviewing a play. The new technology is a lot more efficient than the way things were done in the past, where the referees had to speak to TV producers through a headset and ask for certain views. Officials can now utilize touch screens to control the video in terms of speed, angle, and how close to zoom in or zoom out.
Jackson went on to say, “Basketball is a sport of flow and a sport of momentum, and while the most important thing is that you want to get the call right, you also want to be efficient,” The technology, which has already been used in some leagues, will not only give officials the view that fans and audiences see but three other angles as well.
Now it’s up to the NCAA to implement the proper replay rules where officials can use this DVSport technology at their own discretion. This would hopefully eliminate scenarios like yesterday’s SMU vs. UCLA game where the Bruins advanced on a questionable call.
