Could a Sabatino Chen ending happen again when Colorado visits UA? Not likely

Since surviving a triple-overtime affair at Bear Down Gym in 1965, Colorado hasn’t won a single game in Tucson. That’s 12 straight losses, including the past 10 in Pac-12 competition.

Well, maybe.

It has been 10 seasons since the Buffaloes’ Sabatino Chen banked in what initially appeared to be game-winning 3-pointer at McKale Center before officials waved off the shot, having pored over camera angles to determine whether the ball left his hands with 0.0 or 0.1 seconds on the clock.

The ultimate call allowed Arizona the opportunity to win 92-83 in overtime, move to 14-0 and keep its home-court winning streak against the Buffs alive.

Or did it?

“We won here,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said Friday after the Buffs practiced at Richard Jefferson Gym. “It just doesn’t go down in the history books that way.”

He might have an argument. He might not.

Nobody really knows, 10 years later.

Officials are just hoping, with the help of the better technology and training available today, that it doesn’t happen again.

“You have that moment or play that everybody remembers, and for us it was that because replay in basketball was in its infancy,” said Mike Ortiz, the Pac-12’s vice president for video operations. “I think everybody is more hyper-aware of those scenarios.

“That was definitely one of those inflection points to where we said `OK, let’s make sure that we use that as part of our training with officials and technicians.’ ”

While the Pac-12 was in the first year of a new video review system in 2012-13 — and didn’t switch to a much more advanced one for three more seasons — game officials began using the Chen shot as a learning tool right away.

Inside a Phoenix hotel ballroom in September 2013, a preseason clinic for Western college basketball officials included a session called “Atypical Plays With Monitor Review.”

Not surprisingly, the Chen shot was a big focus. Official Verne Harris, who said he received death threats from Colorado fans since officiating that game, took part in what became a spirited discussion.

Afterward, Harris showed the Star a photo on his phone that indicated the clocks at McKale might have been 0.1 seconds apart, making a tough call even tougher. (Officials consider the clock the ultimate time judge, since the backboard light and horn typically lag behind the zeros.)

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Harris said all three officials agreed that, when the clock appeared to be at 0.0 on the monitor replays, there was not separation between Chen’s hands and the ball. So the shot was called off, sending the game into overtime ... and forever leaving doubt in Harris’ mind.

“It was by far the hardest (final-shot) play I’ve ever seen,” Harris said at the clinic in 2013. “You know what? Half the time, I think I got it right. Other times, I think I got it wrong. I really don’t know. Even to this day.”

If former UA signee KJ Simpson or another Buffalo player hits a similarly controversial shot against Arizona on Saturday, the officials will have more to work with.

Ortiz said all college conferences use a system from a company known as DVSport, which can incorporate up to nine different camera angles and offers officials a “shuttle remote” with which they can flip high-definition shots around as needed.

Officials can pinch and zoom to look closer and put two angles side by side. And in the event that there are more than nine camera angles provided by television, extras can be added in at the officials’ request.

“There’s definitely more tools, and now there’s a comfort level with the system,” Ortiz said. “This is something we prioritize and make sure everybody’s aware of. Our technicians have more days on the job, our officials have used it more. Everybody’s just become more aware of the tools.”

All that’s on top of better cameras, and better-trained producers, that have become commonplace over the past 10 years. The Pac-12 trains and provides an independent replay technician to sit at courtside to work solely for whatever the officials request, while the camera angles are incorporated from the television partner that is producing the game.

“Our commitment has been tremendous,” Ortiz said.

It isn’t perfect. It can’t be perfect. Ortiz said even with today’s technology, the most difficult things to review are last touches or out-of-bounds plays.

But Ortiz said today’s system makes it “significantly less likely” that a Chen-type situation would be an issue today.

“You’ve got a better system of tools at your disposal,” Ortiz said. “You have techs that are better trained. Does that mean that this would never happen again? I wouldn’t go that far. But I would say the chances of something like that happening are significantly reduced. “

All of which means that, even if Colorado loses again via a close call at McKale Center on Saturday, at least Boyle won’t have the moment haunt him quite like that Sabatino Chen shot did — and still does.

A head coach for 17 years, Boyle said he still thinks about that play more than any other tough moment he’s had in his career.

“I don’t think about it every day, obviously,” Boyle said. “But when the subject of Arizona comes up, it’s usually not too far behind.”