They will if programs stop paying/participating because the quality of officiating isn't on par with the level of play. Nike's EYBL has 5 stops and at least 2, maybe 3, of them utilize officials from D1 camps.

You would be surprised. There are tournaments like these that care very much about the officiating and so much that is why they have associations with organizations or supervisors like Court Club. Officiating is often a complaint when these teams claim they pay thousands of dollars to attend tournaments and then you have some JV official calling their games from the local association. It is a much better draw to say you have college officials or D1 officials working your games and why when you see these very high profile tournaments, you see top level officials working those games. Even the EYBL Girl's stuff we did in Chicago for years was assigned to certain officials, not just a guy or gal that never worked the playoffs or college ball. That is one of the reasons I was drawn to work the tournament. And this year was the first time they had a D1 camp which even that adds credibility to the tournament as to who is working the games. Because remember this story got big when Court Club pulled out.

Peace

At 53 seconds or so on this video, one of the officials walks over to a player (presumably to tell him to keep the water off the court or to tuck in his shirt) and to get his attention, he taps him on the back a couple times. The player responds by swatting the officials hand away.

Anyway, it was a weird situation within a larger situation. A good example of why you should try to avoid contact with the players, even if it's intended as harmless.

Yes, that's Lavar's son.

Wtf, from that angle it looks like the ref grabs/pats the players butt. What a dumazz, don't touch players.

^^This

The teams don't care either. Ninety-five percent of the clowns coaching these teams and the parents shuffling their players through the old AAU factory wouldn't know good officiating from a bullet to the head.

Most would rather have their games worked by overwhelmed patsies they can walk over versus competent officials who enforce the rules and penalize poor sportsmanship.

In summer ball, the inmates run the asylum (yes, there are the usual {very few} exceptions) and that's never going to change.

The eternal cry, "Come on, man, this is AAU" roughly translates to: "Can you pleeease just let us get away with things we would not ever get away with for even one second if we were actual coaches of real teams or players participating in high school/college games!"

So, for those of you who do those club tournaments that aren't associated with a referee camp, do you call the games differently? My perception as a parent having sat through many of them is that referees have a much higher foul threshold in those tournaments than in HS games. Perhaps because they are jamming a game into 70 minutes and it won't happen if they actually call the fouls that happen?

(I'm lucky that my son plays for a club that is more focused on teaching the kids than yelling at the refs (or yelling at the kids), but -- wow -- do I find myself seeing many other teams thinking, "no way would I let my kid play for a coach like that!")

Excellent observation.
If a tournament is going to have stop-clock games in a tight schedule and pay the refs roughly half of what the HS regular season fee is, then don't be surprised if the officials do about half of the work, or even as little as possible. Fewer whistles means games finish more quickly and as the officials are paid by the game, not the hour, they don't want to be out there any longer than they must.

You may now ask why doesn't that happen during regular HS games. The answer is that it does. It is only controlled by the amount of oversight directed to the officials. Normal HS generally has more observers, ADs, assignors, etc. than Summer AAU tournaments. This is one reason the high-profile Summer events like having the referee camps provide officials--oversight and observation of the officials. If they are being evaluated for future work, they won't slack off and a decent product results. I suspect the other reason is that the overall expense to the tournament organizers for the camp administrators/observers is cheaper than just paying the officials outright, plus it creates a layer of accountability. Now people of being paid to look at the quality of the officials working the games instead of just working the games. How do they afford that? Not only are the refs not being paid, but they are actually paying for this oversight!

Absolutely. But not just for the reasons Nevadaref laid out regarding unreasonable game windows and paltry pay.

The coaches don't want the games called properly, and/or "tight." "This is AAU, man. You're gonna call THAT?!" I'm not sure what that means, since I would think the purpose of these games would be to prepare them for scholastic/collegiate basketball (aka "the real world"), while this philosophy achieves the exact opposite.

But because 95 percent of tournament hosts/site administrators won't support the ejection of paying fans and coaches, regardless of their level of civility, you do what you can to keep the games humming so the next batch of nutjobs can assume the court.

One technical to a coach who is likely long overdue for one is fine, and sometimes achieves the desired result. But a second is pointless, because you'll almost never have the site support to follow through with the penalty. And any AAU coach worth his backpack, slides and bluetooth will NEVER leave the confines when instructed to.

Coaches and fans generally lose their minds even more when their games are covered by officiating camps, because the games are officiated as they're supposed to be, and for whatever reason, nobody on the AAU circuit seems interested in that.

I always explain it to the layperson this way: If sanctioned high school/prep/college competition is a 95-100 on the "This is Basketball" scale with respect to rules, infrastructure and environment, AAU is like a 65.

Perhaps the statement about coaches being attracted to tournaments that have high-level officials is true in a few cases, but in my experience most of these club/travel/AAU "coaches" (heck, even plenty of real high school coaches) have not the slightest idea what good officiating is.

Sure, part of an organizer's advertising might include a statement such as "all games officiated by Division 1 officials," which would attract some teams, but once you get to the court, most of these "coaches" don't care what level you officiate; in fact, the more you call the game like a sanctioned high school or college game, the more idiotic they act in many cases. And then when you take care of business as would be expected in a high school or college game, all hell breaks loose because you had the gall to actually stand up to these morons for acting the fool. And then situations such as the one in Las Vegas occur because keeping the teams happy is more important than the integrity of the game. While you could have two JV officials who "let 'em play" and everyone is fine with it because "it's AAU" and the games stay on schedule.

And yes, I treat camp settings very differently from non-camp settings when it comes to these kinds of tournaments. Supervisors expect you to officiate at camp like you would officiate a regular season game (in most cases).

This is easily the most important reason. e.g. An organizer could pay a 2-man crew $25 apiece per game or pay a camp director $50 per game to staff however many courts with 3-man crews. Now they get more bang for their buck–accountability for the officials and 3-man crews–for the same price as paying the officials.

We're sharing a brain on this thread, SC!

All this is why I pick-and-choose my off-season officiating.

Exactly. And AAU outside of camp is something I basically refuse to do except for one case where the tournament assignor is a good friend and has our back. Otherwise there is no point.

Peace

For 5 years I have been going out of state to work for these national AAU tournaments. I have brought friends who can referee and we enjoy 2-4 days together working a court(s).

I go because I get to do Varisty with kids who have committed to Div 1/2 schools and I get to talk to Div 1 Final 4 referees who are supervisors at this tournaments. I get camp level feedback while making money and spending time with friends.

They beg me to blow fouls, call clear advantage/disadvantage violations, and to keep control of the coaches. Because my crews are consistent in calling a good game coaches rarely give us much of a problem that a good professional warning doesnt take care of. On the other courts I see guys missing big calls and never making it to half court and ignoring the clowns..err coaches and some get sent home or have their pay lowered.

I can imagine the issues at these things and the officials vary widely. And I feel like I have taken advantage and come out on top. Yet it took a lot of hard work and isnt easy especially at my age. Yet I love to see new kids, test out new methods on coaches and see some great ball.