Quote:
Originally posted by jritchie
I don't believe it should be considered, "calling the end of the game differently", i'm thinking more along the lines of "good game management", if you know they are trying to foul, why make them kill someone? yes you may let a little smack go early in the game because they can play through it, but when you know the light smack that don't get called is going to lead to a MRS (mugging,rape, or stabbing)  i'm pretty sure that is just preventative officiating, not really calling it differently!
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But you ARE calling differently by letting that little slap go in the beginning, but calling it late. AND, you let the team that wants to stop the clock get away with it by calling a foul with contact that you wouldn't call as foul in the beginning. Isn't that unfair to the team that's trying to hold the ball? In NCAA-W, this year a POI is they want us to call an intentional foul on ANY foul away from the ball where the only purpose is to stop the clock. And we've had the discussion on this board about calling an intentional foul if you hear the coach telling his team to foul. So the issue of fouling to stop the clock is important enough that the ruling bodies felt it deserves a harsher penalty (intentional) than just a common foul. So why would you put one team at an unfair disadvantage according to how the rules committees want it called?
Of course, if it's a foul, call it. And since it's the end of a close game, we're going to be more aware of possible foul situations, so we should (will) be on top of our calls so that we won't miss actual fouls that could lead to harder ones later. And I'm all for game management; maybe that means stepping in closer to the players when a foul is called so it doesn't escalate. Maybe it means talking to the coach or captain to remind them to watch how they foul so they don't get penalized for something worse. There are things we can do to manage a game so things don't escalate to MRS levels. And, if it does get to MRS levels, there are MRS penalties.
But I think it puts the one team at a disadvantage if they can keep the ball away from the other team, and all that team has to do is initiate some sort of "minor" contact to stop the clock.
If it's a foul, call it. If it's not, don't make something up just on the excuse you want to keep them from doing something worse later.