Editor’s note: Forget what you’ve read about this game online, Beacon Sports Editor John Breech was at the game and here’s his final take.

Finally, here it is, the column that every high school basketball fan in Georgia has been waiting for: a neutral person’s view on the final seven seconds of Saturday night’s controversy filled Milton-Norcross game.

You’re getting this column instead of a game story because to accurately gauge what happened at the end of the game, you need first-hand details.

As most people know, there are only three things you can be sure of in life: death, taxes and the fact that Julian Royal got fouled at the end of Saturday night’s state quarterfinal.

I don’t care if you’re Milton fan, a Norcross fan or a fan of the Canadian hockey team, you can’t be basketball knowledgeable and say Royal didn’t get fouled.

Norcross fans can complain about the game’s officiating as a whole (it really was pretty bad), but they can’t argue about the Royal foul, it happened, it is indisputable.

What’s not indisputable is when the foul occurred.

With Milton trailing 51-50, Shannon Scott heaved up a long 3-pointer in the game’s waning seconds. It missed. A Milton player (I think Jordan Loyd) almost tipped in the rebound, but he missed. Then Royal flew in from the left and grabbed the rebound and was hacked. Foul. At the instant Royal was fouled, two things happened: a ref’s whistle blew and the final buzzer sounded.

This is important to remember because if the ref’s whistle blew after the buzzer, then the game is over. If the whistle blew before the final horn sounded, then Royal gets two free throws.

Various reports state the refs took between one and five minutes to decide which occurred first: the buzzer or the whistle blow. These reports are nonsense. I have the ref’s whole discussion on video, it took them under 30 seconds to decide that Royal was fouled before the game ended and entitled to two free throws.

From there, let’s cue up this video (it’s of Royal hitting the free throws).

So what was going through the big man’s head when he stepped to the line?

“I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to make this free throw,’ we’ve come to far, we’ve worked too hard, I’ve got to hit this,” the 6’8” junior said after the game. “After I hit the first one I started thinking, ‘I need to knock this down so we can go home.’”

And that’s exactly what he did.

If Norcross fans want to lynch the game’s refs for something, lynch them for the end of the first half. With time running out in the second quarter, Norcross’ Jeremy Lamb made a staggering lay up as the buzzer sounded. It didn't count. 

At the instant it happened, I wrote in my live blog (which you can read here), "Jeremy Lamb made a stumbling lay-in at the buzzer, but referee's waved it off. It was really close, like 'I would split the difference and give him one point for the shot' close." 

I thought he got it off, but like the end of the game it was a judgment call, unfortunately both calls went against Norcross.

That being said, any neutral observer who watched the game has to acknowledge that Milton was the better team Saturday. There are 32 minutes in a high school basketball game and Milton led for 31:01. This means Norcross only led for exactly 59 seconds in the entire game. Think about that. With that knowledge, how can someone argue that Norcross was the better team.

As for the refs, it was called badly both ways all night. As a matter of fact, Milton coach David Boyd was surprised that Royal’s foul even got called at the end of the game, “I thought because of the way the game was called that it was almost poetic justice that we got that call at the end.”

Translation: we didn’t get any calls all game and I’m shocked we got that one.  

One final tidbit. I filmed the final 30 seconds of this game (that’s where the above Royal free throw footage is from). I was the only person in the lower deck with a camera. I had a better vantage point than 99.9 percent of the people at the game. So agree with my take, don’t agree with my take, but since I had no dog in this fight, I think it’s fair to say this is the most neutral opinion you will read on this game anywhere.  

Oh and I lied about that last tidbit being the final tidbit. Here is the final, final tidbit. A lot of fans asked me after the game if they could have reviewed the play. First, I don’t think they had the capabilities too. However, secondly and most importantly, an official came up to me after the game (he was about to ref the Norcross-Campbell girls game) and he watched the footage on my camera. After he watched it, he said, “it was close, but it doesn’t really matter because the GHSA doesn’t allow video review.”

There you have it everyone; a call is call. Sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don’t.