[dkmz17]

During a recent run of middle school games, you know 7th grade G/B and the 8th grade G/B where one set of officials handle all four games, it became apparent that one of them had a bad set of what I call "rabbit ears".

In fact, during the last game (8th grade boys), he directly responded to a member of the crowd. He had made a call on a play that looked to be on the floor and when awarded 2 shots to A1, a crowd member simply yelled "he wasn't shooting" as he gave the ball to A1 for his shots. The ref then yelled back as A1 prepared to shoot, "yes, he was". Would you agree that is something that should not happen?

Later, B1 shot from the left baseline area and missed with the ball coming off to the right block area where B2 rebounded and, with one step, took the ball directly back up for a put back. The ref blows his whistle and B's fans think great, shooting foul. However, the ref then calls out "3 SECONDS" to which B2 reacts by throwing his arms out and down (the classic "WHAT") and the ref T's him. When the coach asks, "why the T?" the ref says B2 was "showing him up". The assistant coach then asks, "what was the call again?" and the ref repeats, "3 seconds" to which asst coach says "the count restarts on the rebound" and the refs responds "I know the rule!". The asst coach says "obviously not" and gets T'd. The ref repeats, after the T, "I know the rule" and the asst coach persists with "then you're a moron" and is T'd again and tossed. The asst coach then calmly starts to leave the gym (the door is on the opposite end from his bench) and the ref then starts to follow the coach.

It seems to me that most of the refs behavior was, at best excessive, and at worst downright wrong, except for the T on the "you're a moron" comment. What is the forum's opinion, as I would like to write a letter discouraging the local schools from using this particular referee for any more games?