Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevadaref
I agree with your partner's response. I think that officials who go out with the mindset to call it tight from the beginning make a huge mistake. They end up putting a couple of fouls on the best players, simply because these are the starters, which may not have been necessary. The game belongs to the players, not us. Choking the life out of the action makes the contest less enjoyable for everyone. I would have told you the same thing as that partner did, if you had espoused your 3-minute philosophy in our pregame.
I guess the games that I work are out of control.  |
I think my answer is "it depends."
Super big game where the hype (deserved or not) was way up -- the first 5 minutes the players were sloppy, all over the place -- I passed on some contact early cause I wanted to let the game breathe (and because the advantage/disadvantage just wasn't that obvious either way). These were (and are) two very good teams (one of them could very well win the big division state title) with very talented players (at least 4-5 on the floor will play D-I hoops). The teams settled in, we still called almost 30 fouls, but we didn't choke the life out of the first few minutes. Matter of fact, I think we had 2 fouls the entire first quarter. The teams adjusted to the hype and settled in. We allowed that to happen. For me, the hype ended after I tossed the ball, but that's my job.
Recently I did another game where the teams were not very talented and decided to come out and challenge each other physically. It would've been a brawl had we adopted the same philosophy as we did in the earlier game. We actually went bonus both ways in the first quarter and probably had 25 fouls in the first half. Came out for the third quarter and we called 2 the entire quarter -- they adjusted to us.
I go into each game prepared to guide the game however I need to. It's how quickly *we* adjust, I'm convinced, that determines whether the game "goes off the rails."