The TCU Horned Frogs managed a slight 79-77 win over Kansas Thursday — despite the fact that the game culminated in one of the most chaotic endings this season.
Refs were forced to apologize to both teams after a debacle unfolded during the last ten seconds of the game. Jayhawks guard S'Mya Nichols landed a 3-pointer that chopped TCU's lead to two points with just over a second left on the clock. The referees (and plenty of frustrated fans) noticed that the clock stopped and started again during the play, and paused everything to review.
For reasons that remain a bit of a mystery, the review process took ten minutes and resulted in another 1.2 seconds being added to the clock, a surprise to plenty of people (including the announcers for ESPN) who believed the game would be ended after the lengthy review.
TCU's Olivia Miles and Marta Suarez were both on camera in a state of confusion, and ESPN's Eric Frede immediately began to push commentator Christy Thomaskutty to get more information — little of which was forthcoming.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, things didn't necessarily begin to make any more sense once play resumed. TCU was called for an offensive foul, which meant there was another review, and then another foul was called as Kansas appeared to tie up the game at the buzzer — a call that was ultimately overruled after the officials reviewed the final shot.
The TCU-Kansas game highlights ongoing concerns about referees
If this all feels a little familiar for WNBA fans, that's because a huge chunk of the 2025 season was dominated by conversations about reffing in the league. Those conversations began early in the season and were already prevalent by the time Brittney Griner fired off a sharp warning to refs in May; Griner was in the middle of an interview with CBS Sports when she engaged in an exchange with a referee that ended with her insisting, "Be f**king better!"
Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve also launched her own memorable takedown of the league's refs in September. Reeve was notably ejected from from a game against the Phoenix Mercury after she visibly charged at referees and was held back by her assistant coaches and a few players on the team.
Reeve had no problem addressing the incident in the postgame press conference. "We talked about how dangerous it can be. You're hearing it from the other series. You're hearing other coaches. You're hearing Becky [Hammon] talk about, when you let the physicality happen, people get hurt, there's fights, and this is the look that our league wants for some reason," she told reporters. And that's true — players, coaches, and fans have had concerns about officiating all season, and those concerns have not been completely addressed by league leadership.