[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally posted by gduckworth
I am not an official "official" - I just take my turn once a week to officiate in an adult rec league. The league is supposed to be playing by NFHS rules - but with all of us "volunteer" officials, it gets kind of crazy.

I am curious how others would have handled the following situation that occurrred last week in a game:

Team A is ahead by a few points with just a few seconds left in the game. Both teams are in the bonus (10 team fouls a piece). Coming out of a time out, Team B captain (B1) tells me that his team is going to be trying to foul as soon as Team A throws the ball into play.

Question 1: how do you respond to the player or coach that tells you they are going to foul? do you need to respond?

Team A throws the ball in. B1 fouls A1 that received the in-bounds pass. I have a foul on B1. At the same time that I have a foul on B1, my partner has called a foul on B2, who pretty much tackled A2 away from the ball. It looked like there were other fouls by Team B going on as well.

My partner and I believe we have multiple fouls, we clear the lane, A1 shoots 2 free throws, and then we line everyone up for A2 to shoot 2 more free throws.

Well, B1 is irrate that we called 2 fouls. I told him he should have told his team not to foul everyone on the court - go for one next time rather than five.

Question 2: did we get the call right, just going on what I explained above?

You are partially correct when you talk about multiple fouls. What you really had was a false multiple foul. You were also correct in charging both fouls as intentional fouls even if B1's foul would have been a common foul under normal circumstances. Since Team B Captain told you that they intended to commit a foul, then the foul by B1 must be considered an intentional foul.