Final score: Storm 54 – Comets 56 (L) (10-12)

Attendance | 9686 (for real)

Anthem Xtra Notes | A few

Anthem High Note | Good

Anthem Style | Britney lite

Fan Noise | That's what nearly 10,000 fans sounds like

Signs | "Thank you Mrs. Bird"

Fan Psyche | Refs, you suck!

Halftime | Hypnotism

I now know why the refs require an armed escort out of the arena after games.

I am livid about the way this game ended. I don't care if you think that in the end the calls made by the refs were correct or if you think they handed the game to the Comets on a silver platter, the refs totally blew this game.

The shot clock call - the Storm begin a possession with about :54 or so left on the game clock. For some reason, the shot clock was turned off when it still had about 10 seconds left on it. Not knowing how much time they really have left to shoot, the Storm throw up a bad shot (by Simone) and the Comets rebound the ball. When the refs finally stop play, they take several minutes to sort things out. In the end, the Comets retain possession of the ball. The refs completely blew this call. They should have stopped play as soon as the shot clock went down, reset it and allowed the Storm to continue their possession. Instead, the refs allowed play to continue and ended up deciding to let the Comets keep the ball.

The mystery technical - somewhere along the way, the refs called a technical against one of the Storm. Why? Who knows - it was never announced. Sheryl Swoopes hits the free throw.

The inbounds play - Yes, Michelle should not have tried to shovel the ball back to Sue and expose themselves to a steal by Arcain. But didn't Arcain and the other Comet attacking the ball (sorry, I don't remember who it was) honestly mug Sue and Michelle to force the turnover? And then Sue gets called for a foul on Arcain? Yes, Sue slapped at Arcain, but what about all the body blows and shoving that the Comets commited in order to get to the ball? Of course, Arcain hits both of her free throws.

Instead of being up by one, the Storm find themselves down by 2 with just over a second left on the clock. The refs awarded the Comets with the 3 points that decided this game.

Oh, but the lousy reffing wasn't confined to the last minute of the game and it went for and against both teams. At least 2 of Sonja's 5 fouls were bad calls. At the beginning of the game, the Comets were getting away with everything without any calls. The refs seemed incapable of getting an out-of-bounds call correct for either team. During their interminably long discussions, the Comets huddled up and basically took a timeout - isn't that against the rules? Also, Swoopes, Thompson and Tiffany Johnson ended the game with 4 fouls between them. As Dr. Evil would say (since he obviously trained these refs) - riiiight.

If the Comets had beaten the Storm straight up, that's one thing. But to lose a game this way is infuriating. The refs completely disrupted the flow of the game. They took the crowd out of it. They took the Storm out of it. I hope the Storm can come back from this. I hope they find some way to get past the demoralizing kick in the gut that the last minute of this game delivered to them and us. Before the game, I told Angie that this game could be a season maker or breaker. I hope the Storm can use this and still turn it into a season maker.

Notes:

I'm still burning too much to see anything but the end of this game - no notes for now.