Quote:
Originally Posted by tref
Hmmm I guess the calling official & myself are the only ones that saw the defender take 2 steps to his right & walk under the airborne shooter while in the arc  |
The official in the play pointed to the RA, so in doing so, he said that the play would have been legal (in that the defender had his torso in the path of the offensive player and beat him to the spot) but the defender was located in the restricted area.
IMO, this is a correct call. I had the player barely catching the ball outside the lower defensive box. In such, the restricted area comes into play. The defender gave the offensive player receiving the pass an opportunity to land and stop/change direction so he's fine there. For the defender not to be called for a blocking foul (since he was located in the restricted area), he has to alight in an attempt to block the shot. He doesn't and contact was more than marginal IMO as it clearly affected the offensive player's shot...thus the blocking foul.
I didn't have a problem with the timing of the whistle. For one, there's a lot to digest on this play. The official has to decide if the player caught the ball inside or outside the lower defensive box. Then he has to judge if the defender has a legal position based off of that. Then he had to decide if the contact was marginal or illegal. It took him half a beat to decide if the contact was legal or not and IMO he got it right.