Quote:
Originally posted by rainmaker
Hawks Coach, as an astute observer of the youth basketball scene, from a variety of angles, what kind of wording or description could we use that would help narrow this down a little??
|
It clearly is not a question of guidance to coaches and players, but rather one of consistent rule enforcement. bktballref has beat me to the punch a bit, and I think he is correct on lack of enforcement by many officials. But I think he misses the other side of the point a bit as well. I believe that there are refs that are way over on the other side of this and calling palming where it does not exist. Rather than emphasize a finer point of the game to players, it confuses them and leaves them grasping for a standard. I can read the rule and when I see a player do something that I believe is legal and in the eyes of another it is illegal, we need to have a consensus as to what the rule really means. I think some call it with regard to how long the hand has contact with the ball, regardless of what the ball does.
If you maintain a consistent down and sideways motion with the hand (and the ball under the hand), extended contact with the ball is perfectly legal. When you get that horizontal movement of the ball with nothing downwards, you should have a palm. Only one of the four calls we had this last weekend met the latter criteria. I thought the first call was a great use of the POE, but the other three were way beyond any definition of palming that I can find. On the two second half calls, the dribblers were heading straight toward me and I had a very clear view. And, of course, as bktballref notes, in almost any other game this winter we get away with all four.
My feeling is that the old way of interpreting the rule, i.e., have to have a hand below the centerpoint of the ball, may have allowed too much but at least it was more cleanly enforceable. If you are going to have a POE like this, the refs need more training on exactly what NF is looking for in palming calls. If we have a consistently enforced standard, the good coaches will be able to teach to it.