Quote:
Originally Posted by HokiePaul
I think the IF was way worse than the travel call.
The trail who called the travel, in my opinion, got the call wrong. But "if" the official believed there was an obvious miss on something like this (travel, double dribble, etc), then I have no issue coming to get this from that position. And the official's mechanics were excellent. We pregame that all the time -- come get something obvious, which is what the official thought he was doing.
I hate the IF call. This was a defender who got beat and illegally contacted the opponent. This would never be called an IF in any other circumstance except the official assumed that the player was trying to foul to stop the clock. This is an official way overthinking the situation. You can always upgrade too, so no reason to give a preliminary IF signal.
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Under the MHSAA's point of emphasis this season, yes this was an IF. With that said, I have watched very similar plays happen multiple times this year and it has not been called an IF once. This was similar to what the coach had pointed out in the article.
I do agree that the official was overthinking the situation, but also something else was going on. Twice it appeared that the player fouled the ball handler before the IF and nothing was called. Had this been a team trailing on the scoreboard instead of leading, my guess is that the first or second foul would have been called. I think there is a substantial level on inconsistency when it comes to fouls by teams ahead compared with teams that are fouling to stop the clock to extend the game.
What I did find interesting is right after the game ended, there was a shot of the Iron Mountain coach talking to the individual in charge of basketball for the MHSAA. I don't know what was said, but I'm can guess knowing the individual in question.