IT WAS A WEIRD few days for local teams and instant replay.

There was weirdness at the end of both the BYU-Arizona State and Utah-Utah State basketball games and far too frequently throughout the Las Vegas Bowl. But it's still hard to argue that televised instant replay is a bad thing.

Did the Cougars actually win on Charles Abouo's tip-in at the buzzer against the Sun Devils? While one Utah State fan I know argued vociferously that BYU got robbed (really), I'm not sure. I watched the replay time and again, and the only thing that would surprise me is if the officials used it to rule the basket no good. I didn't seen anything definitive along those lines.

The most startling thing to me was that, throughout the game, the FSN crew was using incredibly annoying angles from hand-held cameras under the baskets. They were so carried away with their artsy angle they forgot they were supposed to be showing us the game. And those angles made it impossible to see the action.

And yet, in those finals seconds when an angle like that might have given us a definitive answer, the cameras under the basket had disappeared.

As for the Las Vegas Bowl, I'm not arguing that any of the replays were misread (because I have no idea what the refs are thinking most of the time). But there was the replay that never was — when no one bothered to review the tape and listen for the whistle on what should have been a BYU fumble recovery/touchdown.

But the endless conferences over a variety of replays were a huge annoyance to fans and a huge embarrassment to the Atlantic Coast Conference, which provided the officials.

(It's not just the ACC's football teams that stink, so do their refs!)

Frankly, the refs who did the best job were the ones at the USU-Utah game in Logan. The embarrassment belongs to the timekeeper, who failed to start the clock. Or maybe it was the ref's fault. Or technology's fault.

Whatever the case, watching the replay and using a stop watch to see if Tai Wesley's shot came before time should have expired was a reasonable way to deal with it.

Certainly, the Utes disagree. And they wouldn't have minded a do-over, I'm sure.

However, this was fair. And it didn't take enormous amounts of time.

But then this wasn't the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Thank goodness.

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HE SAID WHAT? Detroit News columnist Rob Parker obviously handled himself very badly when he asked Detroit Lions coach Rod Marinelli, "On a lighter note, do you wish your daughter could have married a better defensive coordinator?"

The question of nepotism was legitimate, given the Lions' 0-15 record and 42-7 loss to the Saints. But asking it that way at a televised, postgame press conference? Not smart.

But it was just laughable to hear Fox's Terry Bradshaw say, "You're a disgrace to your profession, my friend. You're a total idiot."

This could be the reason they invented the expression about the pot calling the kettle black.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com