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Just over the holiday my Mom was in intensive care and I had a tournament game that is pretty much a try-out for the state tournament.
My game was at 1230 the hospital was on the way so I stopped by to see her...big mistake. She was upset, got me upset and obviously that all weighed heavy on my mind.
So we have 16 minute halves...part of the tournament rules to keep games on time...so that change feels strange too. I spent the first few minutes fighting off all that was going on, second guessing everything I was doing and then we had a kid get a pass over the top with only a guard chasing him.
I was trail as the kid went up for a two handed dunk and back-rimmed it, the ball popped up and the kid looked down to see who was under him and kind of hung there for a split second. Just as his teammate got the rebound and put it back in he let go of the rim, so we had a rim pop back into the ball and him contacting the rim with the ball in the cylinder...bam, whistle, basket interference.
At the half my partner was thinking we should have gotten him for hanging on the rim and given him a T. The T never entered my mind, the kid looked down, we had a close game and in my mind a T would have been absolutely wrong.
The discussion kind of refocused me and I had a much easier second half.
After the game, our evaluator's first words were, "Great call on the basket interference, 75% of the officials out there would have given a T and they'd have been wrong!"
The rest of the evaluation went well too, so somehow I managed to get through the distraction, and I really think my instincts really kicked in and saved me. That or just being aware you are struggling makes you focus harder.
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