Favorite Moment from the Season

[packersowner]

With basketball season winding down in many parts, what has been your favorite moment of the season?

I have to admit, I think we have gone overboard with getting every last kid on the bench in the scorebook, but there have been a couple of times where late in games a special needs kid was able to come off the bench and play. The excitement they have is contagious and one of the reasons I stay involved.

However the night after the FL shooting, I worked a game where both teams stood together on the court with their arms locked around each other. Both teams and the officials agreed that we would toss the ball and let 17 seconds run off the clock before playing. The coaches said it was the players idea to do that to honor those students and adults who had lost their lives.

Put things in perspective for me...

[Terrapins Fan]

Hard to top that one.

I had a game go overtime on a shot with under 1.6 seconds. 2 good partners and an enthusiastic crowd.

https://forum.officiating.com/basket...vs-8-11-a.html

[BillyMac]

Mine was my toughest game, from a game management point of view. League rivals, it was a fairly lopsided game, although it got within ten in the fourth period, but the players, and coaches, were constantly challenging us. An early double foul (a rare call from me) should have given us a clue about the rest of the game. Two opponents chest bump each other during a throwin situation, warned to stop, next throwin, the same thing, so double foul. Third period, intentional hard foul (excessive contact, kid ended up in the bleachers) (Coach: "But he was going for the ball"). Technical foul on coach for yelling at me ("bullshit"), technical foul on player for hanging on rim (showboating) after a breakaway dunk (As the trail, I kept saying to myself, let go, let go, let go, and he didn't). Players glaring at each other after fouls, especially when untangling after they go down to the floor. We spend the entire night telling kids, from both teams, to just "walk away" from such situations. Every whistle for a foul, or held ball, required us to step in between bodies quickly to keep things from escalating. We were calling touch fouls the entire second half. It came down to the last seconds when the home captain (up by fifteen) was thinking about taking an unopposed three pointer as players from both teams allowed the clock to wind down (he looked at the clock, looked at the three point line, and loaded up to shoot until I told him, "Don't you dare", he complied).

https://forum.officiating.com/basket...ml#post1016242

As my partner and I sat in the locker room after the game, both physically, and mentally, exhausted, we both agreed that we needed that game, that both of us had had a uneventful, easy season to that point. This game really tested our game management skills and, for the most part, we were successful. No ejections, no fights, we did our job that night, we had to be on task 100% of the time that night, it was not a game where we could just get in, get out, and get paid. To paraphrase John Houseman in those classic Smith Barney television commercials: That night, we made our game fees the old-fashioned way, we earned them. My ride home that night was quite satisfying, no double guessing, we gave our best.

[Terrapins Fan]

BillyMac, I wish there was a "like" button.

[#olderthanilook]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Mine was my toughest game, from a game management point of view. League rivals...

Awesome post, BMac. Thanks for sharing.

[RefsNCoaches]

Mine came as a spectator at Senior night for my daughter who is V Basketball Cheerleader. Her school's team had a kid get injured badly early in the year....don't know the extent of the injury but it was enough to end his SR season in an upper body brace.

He warmed up with the team (as much as he could walk and shoot a few standing layups) and he got to start this game with 3 other Seniors and one Junior....

Opening tip, the visiting team did not challenge and they tapped the ball to one kid who fed the kid with an injury an easy pass. He walked in for an uncontested lay up. Visiting team then inbounded the ball and was given an uncontested layup at the other end. Home team then inbounded and walked the ball to half court and stepped out so they could sub the kid out. He left to a standing ovation from both home and visiting crowd.

It was a nice display of sportsmanship in a conference match up.

[Mark Padgett]

BillyMac - that sounds like an incredibly difficult game to work. I give you kudos for staying on top of it without just trying to get out of there ASAP.

Good job, buddy. Go take a quarter out of petty cash.

[bas2456]

Sophomore boys. I'm the L, and I called an off-ball foul in the post.

As I'm reporting I can hear the coach say "Off ball?!? We haven't had that called all year!"

I took that as a compliment.

[Mark Padgett]

Originally Posted by bas2456

As I'm reporting I can hear the coach say "Off ball?!? We haven't had that called all year!"

"Oh, so this is your first game?"

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by bas2456

As I'm reporting I can hear the coach say "Off ball?!? We haven't had that called all year!"

"Thank you."

[ballgame99]

Got to work a small school boys varsity game (1A) that somehow got broadcast on ESPN3 (internet stream). Now it was just an internet stream and not an especially good game, but for a small town like that it was really exciting, they had cameras everywhere, a makeshift broadcast table in the stands, and a full house. The kids were jacked up and even had a couple dunks.

[Pantherdreams]

2 person. Conference playoffs. Local rivals. V girls. Physical intense game.

Coach B (visiting) is heated after a 5 second call. Apparently felt like one of his girls was getting pushed around the floor and unable to execute in bounds play properly resulting call. My partner goes to talk to him, when coach A calls a timeout. They end up at scorers table my partner trying to be diplomatic is saying if you want that call then we'll have to be consistent on what we are calling on everyone. Coach is still irrate walks away complaining about live vs dead ball contact and dissatisifed with partners explanation.
No language though so lives to complain another day.


Partner comes to tell me not to take anymore from him about that call, that he's explained they we are calling a physical game the same at both ends and if wants to complain about cutters getting held up we either need to T him up to end complaints or start tightening up on everything and have game take 4 hours.

A few minutes later we get the the half time. Coach B approaches us to talk saying he's not complaining but doesn't think we are talking about the same thing. My partner goes back to his consistency speech. Coach interrupts him and says he doesn't care about cutter but a girl standing out of the play got shoved into the play with a push in the back. My partner hesitates then dead pans: " You're right we are not talking about the same thing". We all bust up laughing, no problems the rest of the way.

[Amesman]

Early Sat. morning game, rescheduled after a snowstorm the two days before. Have to get this girls JV tilt in before varsity's 10 a.m. senior day game (which was also postponed).

Just 6 in uniform for the home team, vs. 8 or 9 for visitors who are nonetheless overmatched in virtually every aspect.

The lone sub for home team comes in during the first half and clearly is out of place, guarding her girl (sort of) way beyond the arc and off ball, etc. On offense, standing almost next to the teammate with the ball. Shuffling her feet the few times she touched the ball. A patient (non-) whistle by both me and partner proved fortuitous.

After a few minutes, she is gassed and gives a pleading look to the coach for a sub.

At halftime, I ask the student working the book what's up with #23. Turns out she's the team manager and this is the first time she ever suited up. Might be a special needs student, nobody's really sure. She also helped out with the scoreboard during the year and generally did whatever was needed -- it's apparent this was not an athlete who was cut at the beginning of the season.

Well, the second half starts and "Rosie" gets more playing time -- and a load of shots. Her teammates kept setting her up, but nothing falls. We're talking maybe a dozen shots in about a quarter's time.

Finally, a whirling, half-turning bank shot from just outside the elbow goes in. Pandemonium! By now the Senior Day crowd had filed in. And by this time, even the opposing team, I think, "got" what the home team was trying to do in the last game of the season.

But then the next three times down the court, home team STILL worked to get her shots. Um, enough's enough girls.

For good measure, on the ensuing trip down court, I made sure to go by the visiting team's bench and asked out of the side of my mouth, "Got anybody who needs a basket, coach?" He paused for a second, then got it, smiled and said no.

Not as dramatic as some of the other tales here, but not a bad way to finish an early Saturday morning noteworthy for absolutely nothing else.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Amesman

Might be a special needs student, nobody's really sure. She also helped out with the scoreboard during the year and generally did whatever was needed

Similar situation for me a few weeks ago. Two very small schools, rivals, girls varsity. Visiting team down by about twenty with a few minutes to play. Both teams start bringing in their substitutes. Except no substitute for the visiting team captain/point/shooting guard, clearly the best player on the floor. I'm wondering why she's still out there. Then I notice a player who up until this point had been filming the game from the end of the bench. She's barely a basketball player, and barely an athlete, but she's out there. Then I figure out why the captain/point/shooting guard is still out there, she's setting up plays, real plays, to get this subaverage player a shot. The captain/point/shooting guard had several chances to score herself, but instead kept running plays, even telling players where to go, and where to set screens, on inbounds plays, right down to the last second.

I'd like to tell you that the subaverage player did score a basket, but she didn't. But I do know why the captain was selected to be captain because she showed outstanding leadership skills in that game. Pretty impressive for a teenage, high school, girl. I was certainly impressed.

[BigT]

Last HS game of the year is two boys JV squads. Never seen a rivalry of this scale.

First foul on a drive from above the arc towards the paint I am putting the ball on the side. Home coach is so upset of where he gets the ball he calls a TO to tell me I am wrong...

A few more trips and I stop the game and give a warning... it was down hill from there.

I am lead a player tries to go through a mess and loses the ball and a player kicks it. Whistle! Kick!
Big guy gets bumped from behind after the whistle turns around two hands shoves the player to the ground! Tweet technical foul.

Home (White) is now hitting threes and the lead is getting away early and will stay 20 plus but green doesnt care. This is a rivalry and people will die...

Later a green player gets into it with a white player taunting him. My partner calls another T.

Later home coach gets into it with my partner and he gets a T.

Later White 5 the center after the whistle blows shoves Green 44 (earlier guy who got a deadball technical) and he gets a T.

Green 44 on a FT rebound instead of going into the key throws an elbow into the head of White 5. I go intentional.

And my favorite White 5 and Green 44 start shoving eachother coming up the floor and both get their 2nd T and are gone.

Never seen such a phyiscal mess. I dont think they should schedule rivalries at the end of the season. Those two missed out on their playing time in the Varsity game.

Afterwards I heard that Green 44 elbowed a referees kid who was playing in a JV game earlier in the season.

Thank goodness my assignor and a board member were watching and said we did a good job. That made for my craziest game of the year and career.

Thanks for letting me share.