A previous thread on being a good partner offered the guidance to call the same game. I agree with this guidance, but have a question as to how you put it in practice. In my experience, we have in our association (and probably all associations) refs who are very quick whistles and refs who don't appear to remember that they brought their whistle (and I mean every time they are on the court, not just certain games). It seems especially noticeable that our notoriouos slow whistles either dictate the way the game will be called or have a game that is called totally differently by each partner. I have yet to see the slow whistles change their game to be in line with their partners. The officials that I think call a pretty good game tend to adjust to these partners, but that means that we will have a lot of no-calls throughout the game and very sloppy ball.
How do you deal with this scenario? As a coach, I hate to watch ugly basketball. I don't believe that my players learn much from it either, and both teams tend to get frustrated. The only good thing is that the game is consistent, so my players at least can adjust. But it makes for bad bball in general. And when the quick whistles are happening (and one partner adjusts to his partner's bad habits), you end up with two teams playing their entire bench and a foul every possession - consistent again, but no flow and ugly ball. In AAU Regionals, we shot 37 free throws, 25 in the second half against a zone defense! I can assure you we deserved half that total at best.
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