Sun Belt Conference commissioner Keith Gill has apologized to the Troy women’s basketball team for a missed call at the end of the Trojans’ 86-83 loss to Old Dominion on Friday.

The Monarchs got away with having six players on the court while scoring their final basket with 2.1 seconds remaining. The on-court officials apparently did not notice the violation, which would have resulted in a technical foul and free throws for the Trojans, and left the court before it could be corrected by replay.

The Sun Belt office issued a statement some three hours after the game ended for what it called an “incorrect adjudication of the playing rules,” with Gill apologizing to Rigby and her team. In addition, it was noted that the officials in question will not work another game in this year’s tournament.

“I apologize to head coach Chanda Rigby, the Troy women’s basketball student-athletes, and the Troy community for the manner in which the end of the game was officiated,” Gill said. “No one wants a game to end this way — especially during the postseason.”

The play began with 4.7 seconds remaining, with the Monarchs leading 84-83 and inbounding the ball in front of their own bench. ODU had five players on the court and one inbounding the ball, with Amari Young scoring on an uncontested layup for a three-point lead.

In addition, someone on the Old Dominion bench appeared to pull the extra player off the court as the controversial play developed. The ESPN+ announcers correctly spotted the violations, but apparently no one in game operations did.

Here’s video, via Rosie Langello of television station WSFA in Montgomery:

Troy’s Jada Young then missed a last-second 3-pointer. After the game ended, Rigby and her staff protested the missed call with Sun Belt game operations staff, but were told the play was not reviewable because the officials had already left the court.

The result stood, and Old Dominion (23-11) advanced to the semifinal round. The Monarchs face top-seeded James Madison at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, while Troy heads home.

“There was a reason one person was open,” Rigby said in her post-game news conference. “There was one person throwing the ball in, and five more on the floor. So that’s six. And we covered everybody perfectly, that we could. But there was one person wide-open, because there was an extra person out there.

“Strange things happen, in basketball, and with officiating. Believe me, I know. … Things happen, but I don’t agree with the fact that it wasn’t correctable. They were able to stop the game many times for reviewable things. And this was pretty big.

“Maybe back in the day, before we had technology, maybe that could hold true — once the referees leave the floor, nothing can be done about it. But everybody’s going to see that. And I don’t want the officials to be shown in a bad light either. I wanted them to have a chance to correct it, just like I wanted my team to have a chance.”

Young led ODU with a game-high 29 points. Monarchs coach DeLisha Milton-Jones said she didn’t notice the extra player her team had on the court, but was told about it afterward.

“That’s what someone was saying,” Milton-Jones said. “I’ll have to go back and look and see, but that’s what someone was saying. I respect the referees that we have in this conference. They do a great job, and it’s a hard job. If they saw it, I’m sure they would have called it. … It’s been rumored that there were six players on the floor. Technically no — because there were five on the floor and one out-of-bounds. It’s still a violation, I guess.”

Troy, the tournament’s No. 4 seed, falls to 17-14 this season. Troy trailed by as many as 20 points in the game, but outscored ODU 31-19 in the fourth quarter to make it close.

Rigby said she liked her team’s chances to win if the violation had been called correctly, and added she was disappointed that the ending overshadowed a brilliant second-half rally by the Trojans.

“It would have been a technical, and we would have had free throws — with an 82% free-throw shooter — and we would have gotten the ball back,” Rigby said. “I don’t think anybody wanted (the missed call) to happen. … I don’t want it to look bad on this tournament, but I do want to fight for my girls. I do want everybody to know what happened. We made a great comeback — probably one of the greatest comebacks in the history of this tournament — and that’s what it came down to.

“… It’s hard to find the words when that happens.”