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Originally Posted by sj
Last night in a high school summer league I had a play that I don't think I've had happen before. At least the way it did. I'm trail. A1 is dribbling parallel to the free throw line when B1 comes up on him and bumps him a little. It throws him a bit off his path and sort of turns A1 around so he is going to start to dribble back the other way. At this point I had nothing. A1 had not been trying to go around B1 or anything. The bump caused him a little trouble but it just wasn't enough to call and it looked like he was recovering just fine. However B2 came streaking up the lane and stole the ball clean as A1 was turning back the other way. He went in and made an easy layup.
I would bet that 99% of refs would leave the bump, in and of itself, alone just like I did. But then it turned bad. In actuality A1 was still recovering from what little contact there was. He was going to be fine and I have no problem thinking that at that point I had done the right thing. But A1 was definitely still in a recovery process as the ball was stolen. When the ball was stolen I just froze knowing that I had a problem as I had not seen him coming. I didn't blow my whistle because by the time I got unfrozen B2 was long gone. I think I should have gone ahead and called it even though it would have looked "late."
So maybe a good question to ask here is, using fanboy terminology,.....how late is too late?
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What a great question and topic to explore on this forum. I am impressed with the fact you even asked this question. Unfortunately, there is no correct answer to this question. I think this has happened to every official, and we all struggle with it. The fact that you admit it is even bigger. Welcome to true officiating, we get some right, we miss some.
I'm going to approach this from a different angle, even though I think you should have made the call. I would be lying if I said this hasn't happen to me and I blew the whistle. In a recent camp, I called a handcheck on the ball atop the key. Clinician got on me saying the call didn't need to be made because the A1 never lost control. Then they turned around and said the game was getting too rough and we needed to call more. Welcome to officiating. I think we have to balance something that is unbalanceable, if that is a word.
In this particular case, and I have done it myself and I have seen it done. What ends up happening next is a make up call. The next time down the court, the slightest degree of contact and we got a call. I have seen this in the NBA and in DI college. This is one point you guys have not touched on but this is probadly the #1 thing that leads to makeup calls. I missed the call the last time down the court but I'm getting this one, even if the contact is not as severe. Of course, no official will admit to makeup calls which is why I think this is a great topic to explore.