Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyMac
Customs here in Connecticut have basketball players not wearing "real" uniforms during preseason inter-team scrimmages. Most players wear some type of reversible top, often with an undershirt under the top, undershirts that don't necessarily match the color of the reversible top, especially as teams "switch" colors between games in "jamboree" type scrimmages involving many teams.
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It is for this reason that I'm so vehement about legal undershirt colors in "real" games. During these scrimmages I will occasionally have a slight problem easily identifying players, especially players in close-contact rebounding situations involving fouls, or bang-bang out of bounds plays.
And I'm a guy who over forty years, thousands of real games, tens of thousands of players wearing legal real uniforms and equipment, twice, not once, but twice, called close-contact rebounding fouls on players fouling teammates.
Legal undershirt colors didn't help me in ether of those cases. Imagine if I didn't enforce undershirt color restrictions?
In both situations I had the presence of mind to quickly overturn my own call as I went looking for a color and number (inadvertent whistle).
Rules that restrict equipment colors benefit officials by allowing them to easily identify players on each team during fast paced action.
A player wearing a correct color undershirt in a real game will help insure that we get as close to 100% correct calls as we can possibly get.
In my opinion, from the waist up (including arms and wrists), colors matter.
From the waist down, I'll enforce color rules, but only reluctantly, and I wouldn't shed a tear if such below the waist color rules disappeared (like present shoe, sock, and game shorts rules).