Official David Libbey seems to be a lightning rod for controversial calls

Seconds left in a pitched rivalry game between Arizona and Arizona State. Wildcats' ball, down two, with a chance to tie or win.

Out on top, Jordan Hill sets a hard pick for Arizona, and ASU guard Jamelle McMillan rams into it.

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David Libbey is at work, whistling Hill for an illegal screen. Then he calls a technical foul on an Arizona assistant coach. For all practical purposes, the game is over, ASU the winner.

Monday morning, Libbey made another call, this one to Bill McCabe, the Pac-10 supervisor of officials.

"He said, 'I just can't get this one out of my mind,' " said McCabe. "Dave feels horrible."

When I called Libbey at home in Southern California a day earlier, he declined to weigh in on whether he'd gotten the call right. His talk with McCabe would seem to answer that.

Welcome to David Libbey's world, where it has to be arbitrary rather than collegial. Where one cup of controversy overrides a bucket of fairness. Where Arizona fans forget that he "saved" their team a couple of years ago in the final seconds by making a charging call on Oregon's Aaron Brooks.

"There was no talk about that," he said with some bitterness, referring to the reaction over the Hill call. "Only when it benefits or doesn't benefit. There's no neutrality. All this stuff I'm hearing, all these blogs ... I could [care less]."

Libbey is the West's most recognizable official, its most noted, maybe even its most notorious.

There's the good Libbey: Unswerving, in complete control, gutsy, unafraid.

And the bad Libbey: Hair-trigger, occasionally imposing on the game, sometimes theatrical.

He's the guy coaches will roll their eyes over but will be happy to see if they're on the road, knowing he'll make the unpopular call.

"Dave's an interesting guy," says McCabe. "Fans hate him. He comes across as arrogant, but he's so passionate about getting it right. He's in the top five of every coach in the Pac-10. That's who they want."

You know the old debate about the last few seconds should be when the kids decide the game, not the refs? Don't try that one on Libbey, who will call a rebounder over the back with three seconds left just as he will with 14 minutes remaining in the first half.

For many of us, the Hill call noses into that late-game sanctity, because it's discretionary. And if it could go either way, if it's not obvious, it shouldn't invade the game-deciding action.

That's the rub. For Libbey, it wasn't borderline when he called it. He just got it wrong.

There's worse things, he'll tell you. He doesn't get why people dwell on officiating, why the obsession with it, why there are columns like this one and the one Friday in the Arizona Daily Star that called him Big Game Dave.

"Any time there's a call to be made at the end of the game," he said, "that's what I'm gonna do."

His record speaks for itself. He's done multiple Final Fours, which means he's been evaluated favorably by observers through the NCAA tournament and advanced, just like Duke or North Carolina.

Saturday, he did the Washington-UCLA game, and there was no incident, no controversy, just a game, a very good one.

"I've been in this too long to worry about it," he said, thinking back to last week. "I know what it is, the Pac-10 knows what it is. We've seen it. We've moved on."

Sometimes, though, it takes longer to move on.

Rim Shots

• Go ahead, try to find a more shocking weekend sweep in 31 years of Pac-10 basketball than OSU's wins in the Bay Area. The Beavers were 18-point underdogs at Cal, 16 ½ at Stanford.

• If you're going to get UCLA, get the Bruins on short notice. They've won 31 straight Thursday-night Pac-10 games, when there's more time to prepare.

• Oregon has led a total of 16 minutes, 13 seconds in 320 minutes of Pac-10 games.

• Dwight Lewis, the USC guard who missed last weekend's game with an ankle sprain, is still iffy for this week's games with the Bay Area schools.

• NBC anchor Brian Williams issued a letter to OSU fans for mistakenly identifying coach Craig Robinson, President Obama's brother-in-law, as Obama's personal assistant Reggie Love at last week's inauguration.

They knew who Robinson was at Cal on Thursday night, however, giving him an unexpected, and thunderous, ovation.

"It was almost as emotional as being at the inauguration," Robinson said Tuesday. "I was as choked up as I've ever been."

After the Cal upset, the President called and chatted Robinson up for 35 minutes.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com