[Rich]

Originally Posted by Back In The Saddle

Had a play in a VG game tonight, two person crew, that I'm left wondering what is the proper way to cover. Here's what happened...

I'm trail. Ball is deep in the L's corner, and he has gone out to the three point line to cover the matchup. I stretch and pick up L's post as my secondary area. The post defender has her knee up the offensive player's backside and is trying to move her off her spot. It's not quite enough that I would whistle a foul, but she's definitely got my attention. Right then several things happen all about the same time: an entry pass comes from the corner to the post, just before the pass arrives the defender bumps the offensive player enough that she stumbles as she catches the ball, my partner who had been wide closes down and turns into the play, my partner has an immediate whistle. The problem is he has a travel.

Compounding that, a play or two later we have a foul on the team that got hit with the travel on the baseline at the other end. Aside from there being no travel involved, it is a very similar play. The coach comments to me on the seeming inconsistency. He's absolutely right.

So here's my question...what should I have done with the original play?
A) Come with a quick whistle as soon as the bump happens and it appears that my partner has not completely turned to pick up the play
B) Have a patient whistle, double with my partner, as soon as I see he has an open hand come in hard and "share information" with him
C) Withhold my whistle since my partner has turned to pick up the play, even though he's coming to the play late (I would add "and obviously hasn't seen what preceded the travel, but at the moment the decision has to be made there's no way to be sure what he has or has not seen).
D) Do something else entirely

(A). There's no way that a partner can get in there early enough to see what you saw and I,for one, would be grateful that you saved my butt on a play where I didn't see the entire thing.

Others mileage may vary. But in 2-person sometimes you have to stretch your look when your partner is on ball.