[A Pennsylvania Coach]

My small school team plays in one of the tougher divisions in the state. Perenially we play three schools, home and away, who have earned multiple state championship & finals trophies in the past twenty years. One of the coaches has 500 wins, another is going to try to get her 500th tonight in my gym, and the third has averaged 20 wins a year for the last 10 years.

I'm currently 0-19 against these schools and coaches, but #19 was the hardest one to swallow.

We are playing an outstanding all-around game, and my best player is making every shot. We're in a box-and-one defense containing the opponents' best scorer and nobody else is hurting us. We're up 22-16 at the half, and 30-27 late in the third quarter. A shot is taken by our opponents that looks clearly late to me. The lead official puts his hands to his chest, elbows out, as if he is about to wipe the shot. He realizes that it's not his call, so he doesn't go through with the signal. The trail looks at him for a second or more, then signals the shot good.

At the break I'm asking him to at least confer with his partner. I acknowledge that it's his call but could he please pacify me and go ask him. "I'm not going to, Coach, because it's my call and it was released in time."

My digital videotape has six frames with :00.0 on the clock and the ball still in the shooter's hand, which makes the shot 0.2 seconds late. Certainly close enough to be called either way, but that still doesn't make me feel better.

Fast forward to the final 30 seconds. We're down 38-36. We run the same play we've been running most of the game, with a screen at the top of the key for my shooting guard. A whistle is blown and I look at the board and see that it's only the sixth team foul (to 10+ for us, aargh) and call out my sideline inbounds play only to see the players starting in the opposite direction. The call was for an illegal screen (same official who counted the late shot), the first such call in the game. The opponents hit two FTs and we go on to lose 42-36.

After the game I watch the replay a few times on the small camcorder view screen then head out to the bus after my players board. In the parking lot, the official stops me to have a discussion. I told him my bone to pick is that the call was inconsistent with how the game was called. I had brought a couple of illegal screens to his attention during the game on the baseline, as the opponents' attempted to free up their scorer against our box-and-one, but these were all passed on. I asked him why he chose this illegal screen to call. He said that it was because it was "out at midcourt, where everybody can see it". I asked him if he was trying to follow the rules or keep everyone happy. He said that he agreed that the call was "borderline" but that he always calls those at the center of the court.

After hearing this, I told him that many officials would shy away from making a borderline call in a late-game situation, and he agreed. "Maybe I should be more consistent in the calling of the illegal screens. If I call them at the beginning of the game, we don't have a situation like this." At this point I was a bit dumbfounded by the whole conversation. I'm in agreement with the philosophy that if something would be a foul in the first minute, it should be in the last minute also. But this wasn't a foul in the first minute, the second minute, or the thirty-first minute, only in the thirty-second minute.

It was a polite conversation in the parking lot and he earned a bit of my respect back by taking the time to have it with me, but I still don't understand making an acknowledged "borderline" call that has that much impact on the outcome of the game.

I don't really have a question but would appreciate any comments or feedback.