| Hawks Coach |
Wed Jan 14, 2004 05:56pm |
Quote:
Originally posted by w_sohl
Quote:
Originally posted by Hawks Coach
Witnessed a bigger screw-up two days ago. Teams are aligned wrong for overtime jump ball. I was just an observer, but I noticed it right away and told the people sitting around me. There was a red violation on the jump, and the refs and some of the players on white understood that the teams were going the wrong way. Three white players are lined up at the true offensive end of the court, red has two players at each end and one in the middle, and everyone appears confused.
Instead of the refs clarifying, they hand the ball to the inbounder, she inbounded to a point guard in backcourt, and she comes to the front court (while the inbounder screams at her thinking it is a backcourt violation - she didn't even know what way they were going). While red tries to sort out what was going on, white passes to the block and gets the quick score. Red coach was understandably POd, red team gets distracted and loses ball, white team hits a three, and the rout is on.
Refs needed to get the teams set right before the re-start.
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I completely disagree! It is the players job to know which way they are going just as much as it is ours. It is not our responsibility to tell the players they are going the wrong way. Look at it this way, and this is a true story. Coach runs a play where his player line up under the wrong basket for an inbound in an attempt to confuse the other team and catch a break when one of the players breaks for the correct basket. Now if you are going to tell teh players that they are going the wrong way you are going to completely take away any advantage that that team had. The coaches and players need to know just as much as we do.
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My example is clearly different from yours. In my example, the officials allowed red to face white's bench and white to face red's bench, tossed the ball for a jump, and thereby started play the wrong direction. The incorrect direction had official blessing when the ball was tossed. On the subsequent violation, when the refs realized that they had erred in starting play the wrong way with the jump ball, they should correct it and make it known to both teams and both coaches.
My situation is effectively no different than putting ball in play at the start of a period and both teams going the wrong way for a minute or two, with each scoring at the wrong end of the court, violating backcourt provisions in the process, etc. All points would be allowed. But the refs should not get the teams going opposite how they started to play (and were allowed by both officials to play) without clearly informing both teams of the error and getting them resituated.
Your situation is one team tricking another, which the officials do not have any responsibility to correct or clarify. You are not providing any official recognition that the players are going in one direction or another. But if you toss a jump ball with the players wrong, you have condoned their incorrect alignment and must correct this at the first opportunity when you note it. |
