quote:
Originally posted by John:
I agree with Mark. There are many instances where a double foul can be called, but not here. It makes no sense. If you call the offensive player for a player control foul then the defensive player CAN NOT commit a simultaneous block, and vica versa. . . . In this case one or the other HAS to be called for the foul.[/B]
John,
I understand your line of reasoning here, but I think you're confusing the issue of what "really" happened, and the need to resolve the opposite calls made by the officials. Clearly a charge and a block could not have BOTH occured on this same play. But the officials saw it differently and both came out with strong calls and (unfortunately) signals. Since one official's call cannot supercede another's call, the double-foul mechanic is intended to resolve this conflict in as fair a way as possible. Everyone (coach, fans, etc.) knows what both refs signaled, so getting together to decide who was really correct and cancelling one of the calls is not considered a viable option--imagine the outrage of the coach who gets the call against his team and his argument that the other ref was right to begin with. As others have said in earlier posts, it is not a popular call (to go with a double-foul), but it is how you get out of this situation most expeditiously and get the game moving again. I believe this play is covered in the Interpretations section of the NCAA manual, and it was also addressed somewhere in a recent Referee magazine column.