‘I’m doing my job,’ Cory Alexander said. Wrong.

Here came Tony Bennett, eyes shooting lasers, each step taut and furious.

He leveled a finger at the opposite sideline, at a man wearing a suit and a headset, and advanced, his gray hair practically steaming. A man transformed. Because there sat Cory Alexander, stationed behind three monitors, narrating the encounter, seemingly oblivious to the reality of the situation.

The reality? Simple. Alexander, the color announcer, the former Virginia player, had just broken basketball’s fourth wall. He had influenced a game. He had become part of a game. He had locked eyes with an official, had pointed a finger twice to his left, had told the officials they were wrong, to overturn a call that could tip a game at 71-69 with 54.9 seconds left.

This raised some issues.

Put aside, for a moment, the basic rules. Whether or not officials can use television monitors. Focus, first, on the call itself.

The television angle? The one Alexander insisted the officials see? It proved nothing. It showed nothing clear, nothing indisputable, nothing worth overturning the call. The officials had already conducted a long review, looking at multiple angles, and ruled in favor of Virginia. 

Angles have since floated around, been scrutinized and slowed down and zoomed in. In one angle, Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. tosses his head in mild disgust as the ball bounces out, an admission of guilt. Even in the television angle, Blake Buchanan smacks the ball down, and it squirts sideways, suggesting there must have been another touch.

But Alexander was convinced.

So he decided to do something about it.

Which is the biggest problem, the one roiling a fanbase, the one stirring up outrage. Cory Alexander decided to discard his role as an announcer, ignore the conventions of his profession, correct the officials. 

“As an announcer,” Seth Greenberg said afterward, “you’re supposed to tell the story. Not be a part of it.”

Quite.

Greenberg, from the ESPN studio, mostly defended Alexander. His defense had merit. He said officials could use television monitors to aid replay review. The ACC seemed to confirm this in a message to Mike Barber of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“Officials are allowed,” the message said, “to use courtside monitors to be able to see all angles of the play they are reviewing.”

But the NCAA rulebook says differently. Replay equipment, it says, “must be located on a designated courtside table in order to be used by game officials.” 

The ACC says one thing. The NCAA seems to say another.

But the issue is not rulebook intricacies.

The issue is Alexander entering the game.

Imagine, for a moment, the officials had totally botched it. Imagine Alexander possessed advanced forensic technology while the officials had only grainy black-and-white footage. Imagine all that. It still would have been shocking for an announcer, a commentator, to interact with the officials, to influence their call, to leave an imprint on the game. 

Cory Alexander, the self-appointed fifth official.

“I’m doing my job,” Alexander said into his headset.

Wrong. Your job is to provide commentary. Not to assist the officials.

Alexander’s hallmark as an announcer is his steadfast conviction. He always has an opinion. He says something and never wavers, never waffles. Some might like it. Some might call it arrogance. But that’s Cory.

That conviction spurred him to call over the refs, to show them the monitor, to prod them to overturn the call.

So here came Bennett. What a sight. The eminently composed and mellow coach—the one who once caused a stir merely by standing on a ladder, a few years ago, in deep March, in Louisville, and holding a net and yelling a bit—having to be restrained.

“That’s you!” Bennett spat at Alexander. “That’s you! You don’t have to do that!”

He stopped his frightening advance, body still tense as a fighter, stare still boring holes in Alexander’s head, and retreated toward his huddle, toward his somewhat shocked players. He turned around again, disgust still contorting his face. For a moment, he managed to ignore Alexander, clapping a few times to his players. “Let’s go, guys,” he said, to no one in particular, Tony Bennett becoming Tony Bennett again.

Then the sea of milling players parted.

Bennett eyed Alexander again. Body tensing. Chest tilting forward. Finger jabbing. “What are you doing! What are you doing, Cory! Come on, man.” 

Bennett walked backward, back to his sideline, pulled magnetically by nature but still irate. He reached the sideline. Then he drifted back toward midcourt. 

“Do your job, Cory!” he yelled. “Do your job!” 

His eyebrows drew in. His gray hair seemed to bristle. He stalked the sideline, indignant. 

Indignant at the announcer who decided to become an official.

Image – Virginia Athletics