How much are we loving the St. Petersburg Times' commitment to covering the women's basketball game pre-Final Four? Check out their special section here.

They've got a new article about the .2-gate aftershocks.

Quelle suprise! "The controversial finish to Monday's Rutgers-Tennessee showdown is the kind of critical situation that will be discussed and reviewed with the officials chosen to work the NCAA Tournament."

If you don't know, you should know that officials are independent contractors. That is, they are NOT hired by the NCAA. Which means, they answer to their employers - aka, a conference's Supervisor of Officials.

Those supervisors (when their conference gives them the time and money) will do some training, observe and have observers at game to give feed back to the officials. (As independent contractors, officials are expected to prepare and train on their own time.)

Come tournament time, though, it is the NCAA who hires and supervises the officials. Note's Greg Auman's article, "When the NCAA's selection committee meets to choose the 64 teams in the tournament, it also selects the officiating crews:"

...immediately before the tournament begins, the NCAA's coordinator of women's basketball officiating, Mary Struckhoff, will hold a "prep call" with all of the officials. She will go over a dozen or so reminders particular rules that need to be enforced and identify specific situations and the proper way to handle them.

At each of the eight first- and second-round sites, the NCAA sends evaluators. They grade each crew then choose which ones advance to the regions and, eventually, here to Tampa

Side note: You can say thank you to Greg and crew for their coverage: auman@sptimes.com.