From BCS gains, losses to non-calls in basketball

It's finals week for our local semester-based colleges and the highbrow-sounding "Reading Week" at our local private Division I university.

Since all this academic stuff requires a lot of heavy reading and thinking, we'll go a little lighter here this week.

But, in the spirit of finals, we'll hit the learning fundamentals:

Doing the math: To no one's surprise in this neck of the woods, Illinois made the nation's biggest one-year gains in wins and BCS rank among the 120 Division I-A teams.

The Rose Bowl-bound Illini, who finished 9-3 and at No. 13 in the final BCS regular-season listings, improved 7 wins and 87 BCS spots over last year.

Central Florida, which features national rushing champ Kevin Smith and three-year starting left tackle Patrick Brown (St. Charles North), was next in both categories with 6 additional wins and 66 BCS rungs.

At the other end of the spectrum, Notre Dame's late-season surge kept the Irish from pulling off the Downer Double.

While Notre Dame's move from 2 regular-season losses to 9 represented the nation's steepest fall by a 2-loss margin, the Irish only dropped 68 spots on the BCS list (from 11th to 79th).

That finished second-worst nationally to Rice, which plummeted 72 spots in the BCS rankings.

Incidentally, Northern Illinois took the fifth-biggest BCS nosedive (from 70th to 116th) and was one of five teams to drop at least five wins from a year ago.

Ethics and refs: Here's a little something for those still grumbling over the non-call at the end of regulation in Saturday's Illinois-Arizona basketball game.

To bring everyone else up to speed, referee Kevin Mathis, looking right at Arizona point guard Nic Wise, didn't honor his apparent request for a timeout with two seconds left in a tie game.

Arizona didn't have any more timeouts, so it would have resulted in a technical and Illinois would have had 2 free throws to try to win it.

Ignoring the fact the Illini might have missed both free throws anyway, I asked another Division I referee if Mathis had the right to ignore Wise's request.

I didn't write down his response, so this isn't a direct quote, but it went something like this:

If everyone in the arena saw Wise ask for timeout, then Mathis was probably obligated to make the call. But if everyone didn't see it, you generally want the kids to decide the game.

Since Wise was 75 feet from the hoop, it wasn't 100 percent clear to everyone that he wanted timeout, and the timeout wouldn't have helped Arizona set up a legit last-second shot, then Mathis probably used his discretionary powers correctly to allow the game to go into overtime.

Law of probability: The last 2,000 tickets in Illinois' official Rose Bowl allotment become available at 9 a.m. today.

Get them on the computer (www.fightingillini.com), the phone (1-866-ILLINI-1) or in person at the Assembly Hall. They go for $135.

History: As you already know, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy.

Had they used my ballot alone, we'd still be waiting for that first sophomore honoree. I voted for Arkansas's Darren McFadden, Tebow and Hawaii's Colt Brennan, in that order.