A controversial foul call in Thursday night’s Samford-Kansas NCAA tournament game in Salt Lake City outraged many college basketball observers.

With less than 20 seconds to play and fourth-seeded Kansas up 90-89, the Jayhawks got a runout play to try and pad their lead. Kansas’ Nicolas Timberlake went up for a two-handed dunk, but Samford’s A.J. Staton-McCray came in from behind and appeared to block the shot.

Officials ruled the play a foul, nullifying an opportunity for No. 13 seed Samford to gain possession down by one with 14 seconds left (there were three Bulldogs and no Jayhawks in the area when the ball came down). Timberlake hit both free throws to give Kansas a 3-point lead.

Samford’s Jermaine Marshall then missed a 3-pointer with 5 seconds left. Kansas’ Johnny Furphy got the rebound with one second remaining, was fouled and made one free throw to put the game away.

Here’s video of the controversial play:

The Turner Sports “Road to the Final Four” studio crew of Charles Barkley, Clark Kellogg and Kenny Smith re-litigated the play post-game, and all were in agreement the call was incorrect.

“Bad call,” Barkley said.

“They missed it,” Kellogg said. “It’s unfortunate, but it does happen. It was a heck of a play by [Staton-McCray].”

“It happens, but it shouldn’t happen in these moments,” Smith said. “That’s the key. That’s difficult to swallow if you’re Samford.”

As Kellogg noted, foul/no foul judgment calls are not reviewable. But that didn’t satisfy Barkley.

“You know Kenny, the thing that bothers me about the play is … we review everything,” Barkley said.

“We watched them review like seven calls, but they couldn’t review that one,” Smith said. “They had like seven other things …

Barkley then finished Smith’s sentence, “That were irrelevant.”

CBS Sports basketball rules analyst Gene Steratore also disagreed with the foul call:

As you might expect, social media erupted over the play. Here’s a sampling:

Kansas moves on to face Gonzaga in the second round of the tournament on Saturday. Samford’s season is over at 29-6.