Disagreement with Crew Partner
 

Sitch:
A1 is smallish frame guard; B1 is a heavy set post player--prolly outweighs her by 50 pounds. First quarter action--A1 was dribbling down lane, B1 closes down in help-defense mode and established LGP, A1 drives with shoulder into B1 and A1 falls backwards [actually bounces off B1's torso] lands on her hinny while holding the ball. B1 was not displaced much at all. I am in the L position, and whistle with open-hand up, I did pause a half-a-beat to mentally digest the sitch before calling a travel on A1. Then, Partner comes running in with a whistle and calls a block on B1 (in a rather animated fashion).

Here is happened between us: we spoke off to the side [for what seemed like a long time but was prolly only 10 seconds or so] and I told partner that this was my PCA and I had a travel; he then said that “we have to call something because there's a body on the floor". He then added, "trust me, I've been officiating for 17 years and this is how it is handled in order to keep the drama down." I then told him that "I had the call in my primary and we are going with a travel." Admittedly, I believe he felt as though I was not respecting his “17 years of tenure” so to speak because he was 'short' with me the rest of the game and was not as chummy during intermission—or maybe he just continued to hold the belief that I made with wrong call. I bring this issue up to not necessarily debate the ‘correctness of the call’ but to illustrate how we as officials might become suspect to irrational decisions due to the influence of another official who may try to cite their ‘’years of service’’ as a means of justifying the correctness of their call versus relying on the directives from the Officials Manual.

My question would be if it was LGP, why wasn't it player control? Sounds like the defender did what she was supposed to do, you wanted to penalize her with a travel, your 17 year partner wanted to penalize her with a foul

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Your partner is a chucklehead.

I've been there. TRUST me.

He ruled it incidental contact and the offensive player subsequently traveled. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

I'm glad you stuck with it. There are far too many people who penalize people for being big. When a smaller person runs into a much bigger/stronger person the smaller will bounce off. That's not a push on the big person…Doesn't look nice but it isn't a foul.

In my small corner of the world, we pre-game these situations and its generally been the rule of the land, that if your partner comes running in, we go with whatever the partner has.

A couple of weeks ago, my partner had a jump ball, I came flying in because I had a travel first. Since we pre-game this, my partner went with my call. At halftime, we discussed and I was in the wrong based on the information my partner gave me. I apologized and we made a few jokes about it, went out and had a great 2nd half.

I like this approach, even though some may argue it, because it allowed us to move on mentally in both the 1st and 2nd halves. I would venture to guess you spent the next 15 minutes thinking about what happened.

No, Kansas Ref wanted to correctly rule a travel on A1, the partner wanted to incorrectly penalize B1 with a foul.

If a partner comes running into me, I'm going with his call even if it's wrong...unless it's a crunch-time play.

Had a partner this season come in a tell me I got a OOB call wrong that happened right in front of me, so I changed my call. Later in the game, in the last 2 minutes of 1-2 point game, I'm Lead and ball goes out OOB on the opposite side of the lane after a missed free throw. Same partner is the Center on this play, I ask for help, and he says he didn't see it. :rolleyes:

I had something funny happen last night. I asked for help too quickly (and got nothing) and then, slowly, all 10 players started for the other end while my hand was still up.

Thankfully the visiting coach was reasonable and winning by 25. I was the new lead and as I went past him he was laughing and I told him his players gave it away. He knew.

What was less enjoyable was when a partner openly shrugged when I asked for help earlier this season and I had to go to the arrow.

Ignoring for a moment his stated reason and whether he was actually correct in his judgement...

His call would normally have been the right call. It happened first. If he felt the player didn't have LGP, the player didn't have LGP. Perhaps he saw something you didn't. The fact that it was in your primary is irrelevant at this point (even if he shouldn't have been there). You can't overrule his call. He can't overrule yours either. However, your travel occurred after what he judged to be a foul.....thus the ball was dead by the time your travel occurred so it didn't happen.

Again, I'm not saying his call was right or advisable, but it was his call and it came first.

He called it for a reason other than actually observing that the defender didn't have LGP.

This is a prime example of why I HATE when people pre-game "if there's a body on the floor we MUST have a whistle." No, we don't. Rule 4-27-2 clearly states otherwise.

I'm glad the OP stuck with his call in this situation.

As for takeaways on disagreeing with partners, it happens. Do what you think is best for the game and move on. Some people can't. And that's their problem IMO. Not always something you can do about people who choose to be difficult other than refuse to let them bring you down with them.

I had a partner a few years ago who simply refused to acknowledge any inbound spot I gave him. It culminated with me hitting my whistle on a call (once I had enough) and letting everyone in the place know where I wanted the throw-in.

I shouldn't have done that. It was a locker room conversation. I was wrong to do something that out in the open. I learned from it.

I agree with the concept of going with partner's call, but that involves a level of trust in your partners. I would have done as the OP did in this case, because the partner wanted to change it to a completely incorrect call just to reduce drama. I'm willing to change OOB calls, or call a travel if my partner sees one before my PC call, or a number of other things.

I can't make myself do this one, though.

It's actually one of my pregame points... "if a player goes to the floor, we need to know WHY. That doesn't mean we have to have a whistle, but we need to know why she ended up there"

That way if the coach questions it, we can confidently say "she tripped over her own feet" or whatever the case may be. In this case it would be "she ran into a defender who was in a legal position, and the defender did nothing wrong"