[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

The most typical missed rotation situation (and the one accounted for in mechanics books), is when the Lead makes a late rotation that Trail and Center fail to pick up. In that case, during transition, the old L/new T is instructed to move back to his original side, presumably because the old T did not see the rotation, and assumed that he would be Lead.

However, the OP situation is atypical, because it happens at the beginning of the game, and it is a real game, not a camp situation. I would hope that the OP crew redeemed themselves later in the game, but I think that the coaches would be questioning the crew's competence when they saw that display from the officials. Pre-game and jump ball mechanics in 3-person are standard for a reason: to enable a crew of any experience level to start the game correctly. If I was the C, and saw that R (who is Trail in jump ball situations), lines up behind me when he should be my partner, I go to Lead, and hope that my partner picks up on the error and goes to C. If not, we have very good endline/post coverage for 1 possession��. If I am R, I wait before I go to Trail, so that I fill in the correct gap (if the ball went left, I follow U1, if right, follow U2), based on where my Umpires lined up and where the ball went. This would be a good situation to break the ice at a pre-game, and get us to relax when needing to correct a bad rotation.

That's a bunch of BS. Everyone of the officials on the game would say the same thing, and yet s*** happens. Just adjust and pay for the beer. Unless it's one of the first 5 or so times you've worked three-person, there are far more important things to talk about than who goes where on a jump ball and what to do if someone goes to the wrong spot. It's something that only happens (we hope) once per game.