I still remember watching the 2016 NBA Finals between my hometown team – the Golden State Warriors – and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It’s been almost a decade since the infamous “Blocked by James” call rang through my grandparents’ living room, crushing a little nine-year-old’s hopes and dreams of seeing his favorite basketball team secure back-to-back championships.

And while blowing a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals has haunted me ever since, it has officially been dethroned as the biggest sports heartbreak I’ve ever experienced.

I guess there’s just something about blue and gold that attracts me as a fan before inflicting me with tragedy.

While little Jacob had the Warriors, current me has UCLA men’s volleyball.

And after the Bruins fell to the UC Irvine Anteaters in the NCAA regional finals Saturday, it’s been nothing but controversy.

After senior middle blocker Cameron Thorne contested a swing from outside hitter Andreas Brinck at 14-12 at the end of the fifth set, the call on the floor was ruled as a no-touch, out-of-bounds error.

[Related: UCLA men’s volleyball loss to UC Irvine ends season, marks 1st NCAA final absence since 2022]

But when Irvine challenged the call, the overturning whistle was like a knife to the heart of a team, and an arena, that had already started to celebrate.

The Anteaters put up an immense fight. I mean, it’s not like they didn’t get to that game for no reason. Just a little over two months ago, UCLA was vanquishing Irvine in another five-set duel.

But, as coach John Hawks said, the way in which the Bruins lost wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair to him.

It wasn’t fair to the fans.

And it certainly wasn’t fair to the team of guys who have been working for so much of their lives for this moment.

“What most of you don’t realize is that this journey for these young men started six years ago when I was recruiting them and their families,” Hawks said in an Instagram comment on Tuesday. “It isn’t about one play, it’s about so much more. These guys poured their hearts out all season for their teammates, families, friends, and you… the volleyball community and they had an exceptional season.”

As debatable as the actual call was, I’m not going to go out and say the entire match’s result should be scrapped. I don’t even know if the NCAA has precedence for that situation. And it certainly wouldn’t be fair to Irvine’s players, either.

But in a world of black-and-white, binary thinking, I want to remind everyone that multiple truths can simultaneously be evident.

Yes, UCLA choked the closing points to win the game again.

Yes, Irvine will advance to the NCAA semifinals.

But Irvine should also not have been afforded that call in the first place.

Although critics have commented that the Bruins still had the opportunity to win the game – having still controlled the match point after the call reversal – I want to dismiss the notion that this decision should be overlooked just because, “One call doesn’t decide the game.”

In a sport like volleyball, when you play to a specific score for an indefinite period of time, one call can decide the game. We saw it Saturday, when the first whistle momentarily ended the Anteaters’ season.

And gee, I wonder how heart-wrenching it must be to tell someone they have to keep throwing punches just minutes after thinking they threw the final blow? Is it too hard to understand why the Bruins may have blown those last points?

It’s like criticizing a basketball team for scoring fewer points than their opponents in overtime, despite beating them in regulation already.

As Hawks stated, those points should never have been played.

And, while hindsight is 20/20, the NCAA must make changes to its procedures in men’s volleyball.

Across all major sports and professional leagues, the rule of thumb for reviewing any play is that it must only be overturned if there is irrefutable evidence to do so. And in many cases, that is codified in the actual legislation as well, not just a simple recommendation.

No matter how much you want to investigate the video or how you want to spin the narrative, I laugh at anyone who says they can make a definitive decision from any angle of that clip.

Every shot that has circulated on social media shows the ball passing by Thorne’s fingers by a margin so slight that only a paper could pass through it.

I’m not going to argue if he touched it or not. The fact of the matter is, the play was so uncertain that the rule on the floor should have stood.

Think of it like this.

Much like the U.S. justice system adhering to the principle of “Innocent until proven guilty,” proper sports officiating must operate under a similar mantra.

With the five other referees on the court, it came down to just one of them to make such a critical call?

Joe McCurdy, known as @jtmvball on Instagram, the same account on which Hawks commented, noted that the MPSF tournament employed a third, independent referee on the court during its postseason games that would act as an additional voice when reviewing plays.

However, despite the NCAA being an even larger entity than the MPSF, it seems unfathomable that they couldn’t afford the same thorough process for the national tournament.

If a lack of referees is certainly not the issue, then what is?

If the NCAA truly prides itself on accuracy, fairness and transparency, it must release both the footage that the R2 observed to make the call he did, as well as a detailed explanation as to what was so convincing about said tape.

And I’m not the only one who seems to agree.

On Tuesday, UCLA Athletics Director Martin Jarmond sent an official letter to the NCAA, calling for the organization to conduct a formal review of what has come to be known online as “Touchgate.”

In Jarmond’s letter, he echoed similar sentiments about his concerns regarding the lack of clear evidence to overturn the initial ruling. Jarmond also argued that the NCAA must install better technology for play reviews, with McCurdy adding that the Olympics and collegiate women’s volleyball both employ Hawk-Eye tracking technology for hyper-accurate optical tracking.

There’s no excuse for men’s volleyball to have as many discrepancies as were highlighted in Saturday’s game.

I’d probably expect to see pigs fly before I believe the NCAA would change the tournament matchups based on an incident that happened last week. So don’t take these words as me advocating for Irvine to be replaced in the semifinals. A lack of resources is far from the NCAA’s problem regarding why such a mistake was made.

What the NCAA decides to do with this aftermath will set a precedent for years to come, so the least it can do is offer an explanation.

Men’s volleyball has already seen phenomenal growth this year, with the national tournament seeing its largest bracket in history just this season.

But if the NCAA believes it is the leading champion of collegiate athletics, it cannot do so while turning a blind eye to what should be an opportunity for improving the sport of volleyball, safeguarding fair competition and ensuring accurate officiating.

While the Warriors responded to their historic 2016 finals defeat by signing superstar Kevin Durant, the NCAA must respond to its own mistakes with sweeping, tangible change.