Canzano: A guy with his eye on the court
A chat with the fan who noticed the 3-point-line miscue.
I tracked down Michael McGrath at work on Tuesday. He’s a family law attorney who has had a very busy couple of days in the office.
McGrath ends up an important figure in the women’s NCAA Tournament Regional held in Portland. He’s the fan who noticed the 3-point-line discrepancy from his seat at Moda Center.
“It’s a nice 15 seconds of fame,” he said.
McGrath rode his bicycle to the arena on Sunday. He had a ticket in the 300-level and was surprised at what he observed shortly after he settled into his seat to watch warm-ups. He looked and noted that the 3-point-lines weren’t identical.
“My first thought was ‘This can’t be. I can’t be the one who sees this first,’” he told me. “I looked at it. I took two pictures comparing the left side and right side and posted it on Reddit and sent it to my wife and said ‘Am I crazy?’”
Turns out, he’s not.
The apex of the three-point line at one end of the court was, in fact, nine inches closer to the basket than the other end. A fan seated directly in front of McGrath happened to know an arena employee working on the floor, who then got the attention of the game officials.
A few minutes later, coaches from both teams walked off the distances using the length of their shoes to measure. Then, someone produced a measuring tape and NCAA officials huddled around. At this point, McGrath called his wife and two sons and told them to turn on the television.
“The start of the game is delayed,” his wife told him.
“I think that might be my fault,” McGrath said.
McGrath’s job as an attorney has him trained to examine details and take nothing for granted. Maybe he was the right person, perfectly positioned to see the error. Or maybe it’s just one of these quirky things — that eight basketball teams, a line of game officials, scorekeepers, tens of thousands of fans, and droves of media never noticed the problem until McGrath pointed it out.
“We were all laughing up there (as they were measuring),” McGrath told me. “I was explaining to people what they were doing and nobody believed it. Everyone kept asking me: ‘How did you see that?!?’ But my question was, how did you guys not see it?”
The coaches of both teams agreed to play the game on Sunday, as is. North Carolina State beat Texas, advancing to the Final Four. And McGrath came away with a story to tell his friends and co-workers.
Connor Sports, the court manufacturer, apologized for the error and accepted responsibility. The 3-point-line was fixed for Monday’s Regional final in Portland. Still, the issue goes down as one of the most embarassing moments in NCAA Tournament history.
“I think the NCAA should make me undercover boss and fly me around to inspect football fields and basketball courts and things like that,” McGrath told me. “That would be a great gig.”
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Thank you for tracking this person down and getting the whole story - I love that you did this!
It’s like many have said: “Mistakes happen.” Then the angry, shrill demands for an apology start popping up. That’s usually followed by calls for the company to fire the person or crew and for the NCAA or managing enterprise to fire the company.
I liked it far better when sane coaches or people in authority would say, “It was an honest mistake. I don’t care who did it. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
That’s all. No federal case; no admonishments ad nauseam and let it go.