Marat “Mark” Kogut is an NBA referee with nearly a decade worth of experience as an NBA official.

Born Marat Kogut in Kiev, Ukraine on August 5, 1979, the young Kogut emigrated from Ukraine to the United States with his family shortly after he was born. The family moved to New York City where they established themselves in Brooklyn, New York.

From a young age, Kogut knew he wanted to be a referee in the NBA. His passion for officiating went from an interest to full-on passion when NBA ref and legend Dick Bavetta visited his sports-officiating class when Kogut was attending at FDR High School in Bensonhurst.

Since 2009 when he began his career as an NBA official, Marat Kogut has refereed over 500 regular-season games in nine seasons as an NBA official. Kogut’s experience as an official runs deeper than just the NBA, his professional experience also includes three years officiating in the WNBA on top of four years in the NBA’s G League.

Kogut’s career in officiating began at 16 years of age when he reffed local recreational youth leagues where he grew up in Brooklyn, New York. From there, Kogut reffed high school games for four years in and around the New York metro area before moving onto officiating for several NCAA Division I conferences such as the Atlantic Sun, Ohio Valley conference, and The Big South.

Kogut’s Questionable Call Last Night

Even with all that experience, referees make mistakes and Kogut made probably his biggest blunder last night when teh Golden State Warriors visiting the Minnesota Timberwolves.

With the Warriors down three with under ten seconds to play, Kevin Durant received the inbound pass, rose up without dribbling and shot the ball from three when referee Marat Kogut whistled Minnesota forward Keita Bates-Diop for a foul.

The shot went in. The Warriors celebrated. By almost all accounts, that would have been Durant’s 15th four point play, but the only account that mattered was the referee that made the call. Following the call, Kogut was certain that the foul by came before Durant went into the act of shooting. Many many many people disagreed.

“Did I think it was before the shot?” Steve Kerr told ESPN. “I just watched the replay. He caught and he shot — it’s a four-point play. I mean, I don’t know what else to say. Kind of mind-boggling. You catch and you go up for a shot, and you get fouled in any league — any league — that’s a good bucket and a free throw. Any league, not just the NBA.”

That wasn’t the only nutty thing that happened with 10 seconds left. After that play was reviewed, the Warriors took the ball out again when Curry hit a three over Jerryd Bayless in the corner to tie the game. After hitting the shot, he celebrated by running up court and taunting Kogut by pointing at him as he ran up the court.

It didn’t stop there.  When the game was over, the Warriors had some things to say. The usually quiet Curry referred to Kogut as the MVP of the night and Durant blasted the both Kogut and Leon Wood in a post game interview. Durant’s beef with Wood was the questionable foul call he made on Durant with 0.5 seconds left in the game that allowed Karl Anthony Towns to hit one free throw and give Minnesota the win.

Reffing Ain’t Easy

Officiating isn’t an easy job at any level, but especially in the NBA when calls can be replayed and scrutinized from every angle. Articles like this can highlight those officials, but that’s why NBA refs get paid the big bucks. Now that the players and the public have spoken. We’ll see what the league says about Kogut’s call after they review the plays in question.

Prior to the Golden State-Minnesota game last night, Kogut considered his most memorable NBA assignment as a match up between Lakers and Celtics on January 30, 2011. That was the first meeting between the two teams after they had competed in the in the 2010 NBA Finals and featured Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen,  Kobe Bryant and Paul Pierce.