March Madness, we have a problem.

The men’s games have not been nearly as fun as they have in the past. It’s not the lack of massive upsets. It’s not the lack of goofballs that only be found in college basketball.

It’s not even the overall lack of classics, though Thursday’s Duke-Arizona and Arkansas-Texas Tech games delivered. The second-round St. John’s-Arkansas contest, which was the sloppiest, worst all-around high-level/tournament game I have ever seen, with the teams combining to shoot 4-41 (9.8%) from beyond the arc.

No, the worst problems reared their head last week.

Derik Queen sank a last-second shot to lead Maryland over Colorado State, 72-71. Queen’s bucket came seconds after CSU got a three-pointer from Jalen Lake.

There was controversy over Queen’s shot: Officials missed an obvious traveling violation by Queen for him to be able to loft the game-winner.

Gene Steratore, considered the guru of explaining officiating calls for both college football and basketball, claimed later Sunday evening on TBS that it wasn’t a travel.

Queen took his last dribble at the free throw line. He shot from the low block. In between, he took three giant steps, with strides in between. It is a pretty decent distance from the free throw line to directly under the backboard.

So Queen moved quite a ways to score. Others quote NCAA rules to say didn’t walk. Steratore is quoted on one of the halftime shows that “[I]t doesn’t really jump off the screen as anything big.”

Perhaps I can buy a man moving with a basketball in hand without dribbling the entire length of the free throw lane as not big and worth the cost of an exciting finish if it weren’t for the emphasis elsewhere.

Referees are spending an increasing amount of time on every out of bounds play in the last minute of games focusing on the time clock. It takes an eternity for one of these reviews; Arizona and Oregon had three of them in less than 10 seconds of game time.

Clearly, getting the clock exactly right is a huge priority. Why else would they spend an insane amount of time getting the time to the exact tenth-of-a-second?

In previous eras, that a clock might not be exact would be the cost of doing business. Why is Queen’s travel not scrutinized in the same way on replay? You’ve seen officials check a billion replays to be accurate on out-of-bounds calls late and there was a long, long time Thursday spent checking to see if Arkansas goal-tended a Red Raiders’ shot to open overtime, but this human error is perfectly OK?

I still really believe that Queen traveled. But we don’t have to look to that play specifically. Hypotheticals are fine. Should we be more lenient on some plays and calls if they’re in a big moment?

Either way the Queen play was called, it was going to be memorable. Either side was going to talk about this for a long time.

Colorado State head coach Niko Medved — who within hours after the game’s end announced he was becoming the new head coach at Minnesota — declined to say his true opinion.

When interviewed, Medved said, “So, whether it was or it wasn’t, they didn’t call one…But again…he made a really difficult shot guys…They just made one more play than we did.”

That’s incredibly gracious. And sure, there were things in the previous 19:30 of the game that determined its outcome by both teams. And Medved knows that his opinion, no matter what it is isn’t going to change anything.

The outcome will continue to stay what it is. Queen will remain a Maryland hero and Colorado State will forever have something to gripe about.

But let’s do hope the NCAA can figure a better balance of what matters and what doesn’t on its biggest men’s basketball stage.