I am not a conspiracy theorist. I believe referees do their best to be impartial and call the game as they see it.

One particular referee seemed to have a rough time at the Utah State vs San Jose St. game. Here are a few observations from reviewing the game footage from the same referee, all during the second halg:

At the 19:13 mark of the second half, he calls a foul on Bairstow and was super emphatic, almost aggressive in the way he called the foul. You cannot see his actions on video, but if you were there, you saw it, and the color commentator makes reference to it.

At the16:43 mark of the second half, the ball goes out of bounds and the same referee appears to lose his temper and lunges towards Steven Ashworth in an aggressive manner. Not sure why. No technical was called. He just seemed very angry and almost lost his cool.

At the 13:53 mark, he calls a foul on Zee Hamoda trying to fight over a screen. The call wasn't necessarily egregious, but I point it out because this is when the crowd begins chanting "Take his whistle!" and I wonder if it angered him more.

At the 11:33 mark, he calls a flop on Steven Ashworth. I felt this was a bad call. There was contact made and it should not have been called a foul (my opinion). If anything it should have been called a blocking foul. I also don't think the offensive player should have been given continuation and allowed the 3 point shot to count. Very questionable.

At the 3:14 mark, he calls a found on Steven Ashworth. I believe there was in fact a foul, but the foul should have been called on Dan Akin. If you look at the play-by-play box score, you can see that in fact the foul was assessed to Steven Ashworth, by the same ref that had previously called the flop on Ashworth.

At the .39 mark, the same referee inexplicably enters the field of play, while the clock is running, and pushes/gestures the San Jose State player out of the key, rather than call the 3-seconds in the key violation. It is the referees job to do this? I've never seen this before.

Strange! I am not sure if there is any history with this particular referee but the second half especially was a little bizarre. I wonder what the league office of the MWC would have to say? I wonder if they have reviewed it?

Here is a link to the game: https://themw.com/watch/?id=6319063297112

During the first timeout in the game, the nameless ref also proceeded to chew the asses of the other two refs. I don't know what had him so upset out of the gate but the other two refs did not deserve his BS in my opinion. Dude was pissed before the game even started.

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I mentioned elsewhere -

That was preceded by another exchange at 18:51 where the ref was flailing his arms at Ashworth during an out-of-bounds play.

Same guy.

This referee is named Kevin Brill . . . good luck egging his car, garage or water bombing his locker room at home.

Spencer Nelson called him out directly by name after the 3 sec. call. He's pretty well known in the PAC-12 for making poor calls and hot-headed and demonstrative actions on the court.

Mr. Greg Nixon.


I do remember Kevin Brill. He was the bastage that called the charge on Justin Bean at the end of the CSU game in the MWC tourney last year causing us to lose by 2 points.

Aglicious wrote: ↑

January 24th, 2023, 7:11 pm

Spencer Nelson called him out directly by name after the 3 sec. call. He's pretty well known in the PAC-12 for making poor calls and hot-headed and demonstrative actions on the court.

Mr. Greg Nixon.


I do remember Kevin Brill. He was the bastage that called the charge on Justin Bean at the end of the CSU game in the MWC tourney last year causing us to lose by 2 points.

I remember this guy from Saturdays game. He went to the score table and was visibly agitated about something. I then saw an employee running around trying to get whatever it was figured out for the guy.

I just rewatched the moments indicated in the OP and he has a point, especially the 16:43 mark of the second half when he lunges at Ashworth. Holy shyt, that isn't right.

I come to expect every game that the refs and MWC want the other team to win. It is always the crazy calls going against us, and it is weird. We have played so well that have overcome it to be 16-4, but the refs have been inexcusably against us for some time.

I don't think Kevin Brill is the sucky ginger ref people are referring to here. That is the Vinny looking dude with the huge honker.

Right. The red headed sucker isn’t Kevin Brill.

It's usually a really bad sign when the fans know the name of a referee. And Greg Nixon definitely deserves to have his name known and feared in the Spectrum. The dude seems to be off his rocker. I don't remember seeing him in the Spectrum before and I hope to never see him there again.

Mr. Nixon T'd up Wyoming's coach last night after a horrendous call.

Nixon and Hall were teamed up last night at the Thomas & Mack Center. We'll likely get both tonight in San Diego.

sstewboy wrote: ↑

January 25th, 2023, 7:14 am

Mr. Nixon T'd up Wyoming's coach last night after a horrendous call.

Nixon and Hall were teamed up last night at the Thomas & Mack Center. We'll likely get both tonight in San Diego.

Yikes. Hall and Nixon combo? I wonder which of them would be the lead ref. This should be fun (i.e. extremely painful) to watch.

Is there a way to know beforehand who is reffing a game? I know bettors sometimes have that information but maybe not at our level.


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"Queta stepped out of bounds" is always a classic

During the same possession, where he lunges at Ashworth, he continues to jaw, while Ashworth's back is turned. Then Moore, from San Jose, scores at about the 16:30 mark and he claps his hands. The clap surprised me, coming from a referee (although I have seen this in Jr. Jazz competition), and I was hoping he was just giving a 'tipped ball signal' signal, or something like that, but after watching the replay a couple times, it appears he is truly happy/relieved that San Jose scores that possession and claps in approval.

Overall, I don't think he had more bad calls in this game that the typical college ref, but it seems he needs to check his temperament and biases at the door to ref this level of basketball, in a heated environment (at least contain it a bit more). Hopefully, it was just a bad day and his biases don't impact future outcomes.

ArkAg wrote: ↑

January 25th, 2023, 9:23 am

During the same possession, where he lunges at Ashworth, he continues to jaw, while Ashworth's back is turned. Then Moore, from San Jose, scores at about the 16:30 mark and he claps his hands. The clap surprised me, coming from a referee (although I have seen this in Jr. Jazz competition), and I was hoping he was just giving a 'tipped ball signal' signal, or something like that, but after watching the replay a couple times, it appears he is truly happy/relieved that San Jose scores that possession and claps in approval.

Overall, I don't think he had more bad calls in this game that the typical college ref, but it seems he needs to check his temperament and biases at the door to ref this level of basketball, in a heated environment (at least contain it a bit more). Hopefully, it was just a bad day and his biases don't impact future outcomes.

Wow you're right. I don't think I've ever seen a ref applaud a basket like that during a game either.

Can we show this video to the league and see what the conference has to say about it?

Greg Nixon...

Our game this past Saturday was his fourth game reffed in as many nights...yes reffing games four days in a row across two time zones:

Saturday (1/21): He reffed our game. SJSU @ Utah State in Logan. Game started at 4:00 PM.

Friday (1/20): He reffed the Boise State @ New Mexico game. It started at 9:00 PM and went to overtime. I think the earliest he could have left the Pit was around 11:45 PM and then had to get to Logan for a 4:00 PM tip. He had 16 hours to sleep and travel from Albuquerque to Logan and then ref an intense college basketball game. That's insane.

Thursday (1/19): He reffed the BYU @ Santa Clara game in Santa Clara that game also started at 9:00 PM mountain.

Wednesday (1/18): He reffed the SDSU @ Colorado State game in Fort Collins. That game started at 8:30 PM and went to overtime.

I know these refs try to fit in as many games as possible as they have a limited season to make money, but that schedule is crazy. There needs to be something put in place where a ref isn't trying to do two games in 24 hours.

Of course, he might not have been any better with 8 hours of sleep so...

We won't see Greg Nixon tonight. They won't have him do Back to Back Utah State games. I ref high school here in Utah and if I do a Fremont boys game tonight I won't see them again for 2 weeks so I'm sure they have this same kind of format in place for college.

I noticed at the end of the game, when Shulga got absolutely destroyed by a questionable pick from SJSU, he was flailing his arms and pointing to Shulga. Anyone know if he would have made a call on that block?

i saw the refs as they were leaving the building and told the other male ref nice game, we still like to yell at ya. and he replied back, thanks and we love you guys!!! pretty funny!! we yelled at nixon after he called the travel on Zee in the first half, asking if he was sure zee travelled and he did a little skip dance to show what zee did, without even looking at us. so we know they hear what is being said to them. we sit close to the basket on the west side and most of the time the ref's will talk to us a little during the game. sometimes it's pretty funny!!

SJSU fan here who was at the game. Said referee has always had a bad problem taking things personal with coaches and players. I thought he was bad for both teams on Saturday and chewed our bench out unnecessarily at one point. I def saw some bad calls against you by him as well. On Another note I have to say that was the craziest atmosphere I have ever been to in college basketball . I understand that was likely a C effort by your students so I cant even imagine what an A would be like. Congrats on the win. Im sure you weren't thrilled with how you played but a W is a W.

sjsu123 wrote: ↑

January 25th, 2023, 1:31 pm

SJSU fan here who was at the game. Said referee has always had a bad problem taking things personal with coaches and players. I thought he was bad for both teams on Saturday and chewed our bench out unnecessarily at one point. I def saw some bad calls against you by him as well. On Another note I have to say that was the craziest atmosphere I have ever been to in college basketball . I understand that was likely a C effort by your students so I cant even imagine what an A would be like. Congrats on the win. Im sure you weren't thrilled with how you played but a W is a W.

Glad you enjoyed the Spectrum. I wasn’t there, but it sounded better than a C effort on the stream. Even the Spectrum has its empty, down moments. But USU is lucky to have fairly solid fan support for a G5 team, particularly given it being a fairly remote location in a time where watching a game on TV is just so easy and convenient.

Congrats on your team’s improvement. Miles has done an A+ job so far and seems to have been a slam dunk hire.

sjsu123 wrote: ↑

January 25th, 2023, 1:31 pm

SJSU fan here who was at the game. Said referee has always had a bad problem taking things personal with coaches and players. I thought he was bad for both teams on Saturday and chewed our bench out unnecessarily at one point. I def saw some bad calls against you by him as well. On Another note I have to say that was the craziest atmosphere I have ever been to in college basketball . I understand that was likely a C effort by your students so I cant even imagine what an A would be like. Congrats on the win. Im sure you weren't thrilled with how you played but a W is a W.

I would say it was better than a C effort as well. Our student section has been showing up a lot better this season to all the games than it has the last few years. It's also fun when the entire crowd is on their feet at the end. Also, I'd like to add that I am super excited for San Jose. The turnaround with that program has been awesome, and I'm definitely cheering them on when it comes tournament time! (assuming they don't play the Aggies).