It makes sense why Eastern men’s basketball head coach Mike Miller stands with his hands interlocked behind his head, back slightly arched with a frown and perplexed expression showing on his face.

Yes, sometimes this reaction is to a play his young team makes.

But after watching Eastern defeat Tennessee-Martin 74-59 Saturday night, there’s probably another reason he stands like this.

Plain and simple: the officiating in the Ohio Valley Conference is downright pitiful.

It stinks, it sucks; it pretty much blows.

Coaches and players don’t speak out about the officials for fear of reprimand from the league office.

What a reprimand from the conference is, is basically a slap on the wrist. No fine, no public flogging, no torture racks; just a statement from OVC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher that says don’t do this again.

Which is lame and sad.

But since OVC coaches and players won’t talk about the officiating, this is why they invented the sports column.

Vision-impaired people could have called Saturday’s game better. There were so many starts and stops in the play, it almost felt like a football game when teams keep getting first downs and the chains keep moving.

Except in basketball, that’s not supposed to happen.

It seemed if an Eastern player or Tennessee-Martin player happened to breathe on the person they were guarding, it was a foul.

The inconsistency of the calls was maddening. A player drives down the lane, gets thumped by a defender and falls to the ground. One would expect a foul or at the whistle to be blown.

But perhaps the crew of Dennis Bracco, Rick O’Neil and Rob Kruger had grown tired of blowing it, seeing they called a combined 46 fouls and gave both head coaches technical fouls.

Panther center Ousmane Cisse fouled out with 41 seconds remaining and Eastern leading 74-55. Cisse stood in the middle of the lane with his arms pointed straight toward the sky.

No joke.

UTM’s Gerald Robinson made a layup with Cisse standing right in front of him. Cisse didn’t move at all, yet the refs had to blow their whistle one more time.

Both head coaches were entertaining to watch throughout the evening also.

Miller got perhaps his most exercise of any game he’s coached all season.

Watching Miller on Saturday night was like watching a hyperactive fitness instructor.

There was Miller, waving his arms, jumping off the ground, exhorting his larynx and crouching down, all in an effort to get the refs to call a fair game.

Campbell showed he wasn’t a fan of the attire he wore for the game.

He started off the evening with black pants, black shoes, a tan shirt, a black tie and a black sports coat on.

By halftime, Campbell was down to just the black pants, black shoes and tan shirt.

To most of the 1,192 in attendance, it would not have been a shock had Campbell coached the entire second half barefoot.

Luckily, he didn’t coach barefoot, nor throw a shoe (although he was probably thinking about it).

Too many times officials try to become part of the game or the story.

The best official is one who doesn’t get noticed.

On Saturday night, the referees were noticed for all the wrong reasons.