How involved should you become

[blindzebra]

Here in Arizona,we have a program called Pursuing Victory
With Honor.Under that program we,as official,are expected to encourage and promote good sportsmanship and to penalize all cases of poor sportsmanship.

In an ideal world,coaches would not run up the score,but we don't live in an ideal world.I'm not going to start
making things up,but contact by the pressing team will
be a foul,whether it hinders or not,in that situation.I'll
ticky-tack them to death,because I don't view it as a proper way to teach your team about winning with honor.

It also can cause fights,hard fouls in retaliation and coaches screaming at each other during games none of which is appropriate.

[PGCougar]

Originally posted by blindzebra
Here in Arizona,we have a program called Pursuing Victory
With Honor.Under that program we,as official,are expected to encourage and promote good sportsmanship and to penalize all cases of poor sportsmanship.

Great theory, but how exactly do you implement it and where's the line between good and poor sportsmanship? I think you are asking for trouble, even though the concept is sound and valid.

Originally posted by blindzebra
...I'm not going to startmaking things up,but contact by the pressing team will be a foul,whether it hinders or not,in that situation. I'll ticky-tack them to death, because I don't view it as a proper way to teach your team about winning with honor.

Again, I admire the intent because I really hate classless coaches and teams running-up the score. But... are you going to call the ticky-tack on the opposing team as well? An outmatched team is probably less talented, prone to more fouls and violations by virtue of their lesser talent - are you gonna call those? If not, it looks like an obvious bias, irrespective of your honorable intentions. Why go there???

[Smitty]

Originally posted by PGCougar
Again, I admire the intent because I really hate classless coaches and teams running-up the score. But... are you going to call the ticky-tack on the opposing team as well? An outmatched team is probably less talented, prone to more fouls and violations by virtue of their lesser talent - are you gonna call those? If not, it looks like an obvious bias, irrespective of your honorable intentions. Why go there???

Another way to look at this point is to consider advantage/disadvantage. A more skilled team can clearly gain an advantage defensively with what we might call "ticky tack" fouls because the unskilled team is not skilled enough to fight through this type of contact. On the other hand, the more skilled team, on offense, is able to typically fight through the same kind of contact and potentially get past the defender and create something. It ends up looking like you're calling things more biased to the intrained eye, but in effect you are simply using the advantage/disadvantage approach to officiating.

[MisterV]

It has always been my feeling that if you say that you are, "here for the kids," that you can't just mean only "your" kids. As a coach, whenever I am in the situation of being clearly better than my opponent, which doesn't happen often, I always try to keep my perspective by thinking to myself, "What if my daughter was on the other team?" How would I want the better team's coach to act.

This came up once last year. I coach 8th grade girls. We had a remarkable team. I will certainly never have another team like that again. We played a team that we had beaten earlier in the season by 25-30 points. We ran our usual full-court press in the first quarter and led 12-0. We pulled the press off and played straight man-to-man in the second quarter and led at half 20-0.

In the 3rd and 4th quarters we played strictly 3-2 or 2-1-2 zone. No pressing or guarding outside the 3. I told our girls to run our regular offenses. With about one minute left in the game, the score was 42-0. I asked my assistant if we should let them score. We decided it would be more disrespectful to give them a basket than it would be to keep playing.

After the game I went up to the opposing coach and I was at a loss for words. He said, "Hey, don't worry about it. You are about 42 points better than we are. I just didn't think it would be 42-0." Neither did I. I worried for days about how that score would look when it was put in the paper and on our league's website. We really did try to pull off the dogs.

Oh, one other thing about that game. I had 15 girls suited up that night, and every single girl played at least a minute in every single quarter. Like I said, I'll never have another team like that again. I was lucky to have them once.

[gsf23]

Originally posted by PGCougar
Dealing with situations where a coach is deliberately running up the score is complex. I believe the coaches and other administrators need to deal with the issue, not the officials.

We had this issue come up in a gilr's JV game a few years ago. Final score was 102-7. Winning team played their starters most of the game, pressed the first half, played a half court trap in the second half, broke every chance they had. The next day a couple of the girls from that team came to our school and apologized and told us their coach told them the goal was to win by 100 points. We contacted the other AD, told him the situation, they looked into it, fired the coach and sent us a formal apology. The kicker, this coach was the town's youth pastor. Great example, huh.

[gsf23]

Originally posted by mick
An observation:

When a team, leading by a large margin, is still playing their first 7 guys, I have often wondered, "Why?" How can it be prevented?

Sometimes it can't be prevented. I have a small squad, only 12 players for both the varsity and JV. We also have a 5 quarter limit in our state so a lot of times I'll have 5 guys on the bench during a varsity game that can only play one more quarter because of the earlier JV game. If we get a big lead, I'm pretty much stuck with my starters until the 4th quarter when I can get those other 5 in.

[Hawks Coach]

Originally posted by Fifth And Goal
I've often wondered why coaches continue to let their kids throw baseball outlet passes and jack threes with a 20 point lead. It seems to me that if there's no shot clock, the more time you can run off, the better your chances for victory.

Oh well. I've never coached before, so I should probably keep my mouth shut.

The latter is most definitely true You really don't know what we are trying to accomplish.

Maybe we are practicing an uptempo game and want to keep it going. If you live off the three, and you are working with shooters that you want to shoot without thinking about it, you take the three every time it is there. Maybe this is the first time your shooter has been hitting in three weeks and you want to keep that groove going.

I took a walk-it-up-the-court team and went uptempo last year. I guarantee you that for six months it was never anything but push the tempo. We would stop pressing at leads of about 25 points, but never less than that. And we still ran every time we got the ball.

You can't control who you play, but changing what your team is doing to a different philosphy is not a great idea, IMO. If you have a delay game you want to practice, so be it. Do it for a quarter if it gets something done that you want done. But you gotta get what you can and need from your games, regardless of who you are playing.

[PGCougar]

Originally posted by Hawks Coach
You can't control who you play, but changing what your team is doing to a different philosphy is not a great idea, IMO. If you have a delay game you want to practice, so be it. Do it for a quarter if it gets something done that you want done. But you gotta get what you can and need from your games, regardless of who you are playing.

I understand what you are saying, but...

I don't like to think of making adjustments in blow-outs as changing to a different philosophy. Nope, I consider it to be expanding on other elements of our team's game. For example:

After gaining a ton of points off turnovers and transition baskets, wouldn't it be appropriate to work a little on scoring out of half-court sets? After demonstrating excellence on the press, wouldn't it make sense to work on some half-court D? After saying you live and die by the three (and this game you are living well off the three), wouldn't it make sense to work a little on the inside game? Why overlook an opportunity to work on the delay game a bit?

I look at blow-outs as an opportunity to develop other areas of team play, helping us to round out our abilities as a team. You might look at it as an opportunity to continue refining one or more existing aspects you consider your strengths and build on them. Both are valid approaches.

Like I said before, this is a complex issue.

[footlocker]

I agree, this is a complex issue. All I can say is that I'm the ref. My job is call the fouls. I don't make 'em up and, I don't change how they are defined. Same call, the whole game. But, man, I hate working these.

[Hawks Coach]

PGCougar
I think we generally agree. But I have a shooter who has shot well in practice, poorly when under game pressure. Her first hot game, you can bet we went to her all game long so she had a good memory of what shooting well in a game felt like. When we were just beginning to play uptempo, we were good at primary, decent at half court offense, and awful at secondary break in transition, so we continued to work secondary in games. I thought that was more important that half court against an overmatched team - do what you are not normally successful at doing. But to get secondary, you must push the ball and you will have primary break opportunities. And nobody but me (and my team if they are listening) knows why I am frustrated with how we are executing!

It just depends on what you are trying to ge done - and we all agree that the ref doesn't know that.

[jeffpea]

Anyone ever heard the phrase - "kill the loser with kindness"? If it were such a lopsided score, nearly every borderline call goes to the losing team; out-of-bounds, traveling, 3 seconds, in the act of shooting (yes or no). You don't have to call fouls on the winning team to "kill the losers w/ kindness". Of course, if a team is ahead by 40pts and they are STILL pressing - I will convince the coach to stop pressing by the number of fouls I call on his team. He'll stop pressing or simply run out of players.

[PGCougar]

Originally posted by jeffpea
Anyone ever heard the phrase - "kill the loser with kindness"? If it were such a lopsided score, nearly every borderline call goes to the losing team; out-of-bounds, traveling, 3 seconds, in the act of shooting (yes or no). You don't have to call fouls on the winning team to "kill the losers w/ kindness". Of course, if a team is ahead by 40pts and they are STILL pressing - I will convince the coach to stop pressing by the number of fouls I call on his team. He'll stop pressing or simply run out of players.

"Killing" the losers with kindness? I don't think you meant to say that, did you? If your calls become too obvious I think you risk "insulting the losers with kindness."

Ultimately, everyone is held accountable for their own behavior. If a coach or a team lacks class, it is a reflection on them, not me or you. I wouldn't expect an official to intervene on my behalf - just do what you always do and do it to the best of your ability.

[jeffpea]

Good officials know when they can make calls to "give the benefit of the doubt" to the losing team. This is not black and white! You don't make every call in the favor of the losing team until the winning coach "get's the message" or the score becomes respectable. When it's close, you simply give the losing the benefit of doubt.

The rules of basketball may be black and white as printed in the NFHS rulebook, but not all of them are "black and white". Certain aspects have no room for interpretation (3pt vs 2pt shot, ball/foot on the out-of-bounds line, etc.). However, there is quite a bit of room for interpretation of violations and fouls (3sec., traveling, hand-checking, block/charge, etc.). It is the "grey-areas" where you can "kill the loser with kindness" in a 40pt game where the winning team is still pressing.............

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by jeffpea
Good officials know when they can make calls to "give the benefit of the doubt" to the losing team. This is not black and white! You don't make every call in the favor of the losing team until the winning coach "get's the message" or the score becomes respectable. When it's close, you simply give the losing the benefit of doubt.

The rules of basketball may be black and white as printed in the NFHS rulebook, but not all of them are "black and white". Certain aspects have no room for interpretation (3pt vs 2pt shot, ball/foot on the out-of-bounds line, etc.). However, there is quite a bit of room for interpretation of violations and fouls (3sec., traveling, hand-checking, block/charge, etc.). It is the "grey-areas" where you can "kill the loser with kindness" in a 40pt game where the winning team is still pressing.............

I disagree completely with your whole philosophy. Good officials don't inject themselves into the game, and make themselves a factor. Good officials just try to call the game fairly, equally and consistently from beginning to end. You aren't doing any of that when you start to favor one team.

[footlocker]

And so now jeffpea, you get to decide when a losing team deserves kindness? I suppose if they are down by a little then we give them a little help. If they are down a lot we increase our "kindness."

What do you call this philosphy for the winning team. "just plain sucks." "Hey coach, your winning so I'm going to help the other team a little but only with the gray area calls. You still respect me right?"

This seems dangerous to me.