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Originally Posted by Rita C
My partner and I discussed philosophy before the game last night. (I worked the game with another woman, which is always nice.)
She and I both played, her experience much more recent than mine. We discussed letting the players play the game. I talked about how another partner in a previous game called blocking fouls I didn't agree with. A player receives the ball, then turns and starts dribbling. A defender is in legal position but in direct line to the basket and the dribbler tries to go past. The defender leans to avoid the collision but the dribbler trips over the foot. The defender has no chance to get out of the way and isn't illegal to start with. My previous partner called that a blocking foul every time. I consider it incidental contact, if anything.
My partner last night agreed. Do you? What do you do in a game where one partner is calling those and you don't? Do you adapt for consistency as a team? Or do you just hope for the best, hoping you covered everything in pregame?
Rita
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Hi, Rita. Hope your season is going well. It IS always nice to work with another woman, and I think it's good for the girls (players) to see women continuing in sports after hs.
About your play, I think I'd have had to see it. Generally, if a defender leans, it's a foul, but there also needs to be contact, and enough contact to be a foul. So it's hard to say what I'd do if I were there. If the dribbler's only problem was the trip, and the leaning didn't cause anything, I'd probably let it go. If the foot didn't move, it was probably legal, if my picture from your description is accurate.
About differing philosophies, you have to first match your philosophy to the body of refs in your area, which it is to be hoped matches the general NFHS philosophy. If you feel confident that your judgment (which is what we're talking about in your case play) is within the prescribed thinking of your assignor, then your partner has to be the one to ultimately face the music. If he's saying that whenever the dribbler trips over a defender he calls it a block, regardless of whether or not the defender had LGP, then he's dead wrong. And you shouldn't match that no matter what. You might even want to report him to your assignor, depending on how the politics work in your area.
But when it's a philosophy about how to handle a blow-out, or how to deal with rough play, or how to keep a difficult coach in line, matching is a good thing. Also, defining advantage/disadvantage on borderline plays is good to match up if you can get a sneak peek at some of his borderline calls.
If you finally can't match at all, and things are just looking way unfair, you can try to arrange it so that you're always under the basket, or he's always under the basket, so the same ref is getting first crack at the same plays. At least this is how I've tried to handle it when P and I are calling the same things at all.