I don't ref a lot of high school games, but I was doing a boys' tournament a few weeks ago. One thing that gets me is the pace. I was trail, and maybe I was following the point guard a little too closely. The ball was poked out by the defense, and all of the sudden there's a fast break coming right at me. I froze and let the play go past, but then of course I was behind the layup. The shooter brought the ball down, and the defender along side him slapped straight down, hard. I have no idea to this day if he got ball, arm, hand or what. I just know the shot didn't make it up. I reflexively blew the whistle, and (trying not to cringe), called the foul. If anyone had said, "You were in no position to make that call!" I would have had to agree.

Should I have positioned myself differently as trail? Or is the speed of the game just fast enough that this is going to happen from time to time? I felt pretty stupid.

What happened to the ball? Did it go up, down, what?

We all get out of position from time to time.

But if your concern is that you were behind the play, that is most of the time the best place to be in that situation. You are not going to beat everyone down the court. That is just not going to happen.

I would not worry about it. ;)

Peace

The ball went forward and out of bounds. I suppose the safest call would have been that the ball was dislodged and awarded it to the shooting team.

The education officer in my board has a really neat lesson about covering the play as trail. He has an overhead with each half of the court divided into 9 squares. His philosophy is that whatever square the ball is in, if its in the trail's primary, the official should be one square beside and one square behind. That way you're close enough to see the play, but not close enough to get involved in the play if something unexpected were to happen. I think that this is a valuable posistioning technique and use it when I officiate. It really helps to eliminate situation where you get caught up in the play.

Agreed. You can't guess the call. If the ball went down and OOB, then the only call is OOB to A.

Ref that is great advice. I'm going to use that this season. When I was at camp last month, I was told to hang back slightly from the point guard bringing the ball up in the backcourt, so as not to get caught in transition in the event of a steal and to avoid "working so hard".

It sounds like a great way to CUT DOWN on these kinds of situations, but you'll never ELIMINATE them completely. That little tip can be quite unpredictable.

Once you're caught, the best thing to do is either run clear up behind, so you can see between, or dash out to one side and try to get an angle that way.

Didn't we talk one time about an "educated guess", where if the ball when pretty much down it seemed likely that the defender got mostly ball, but if it went up or away at an angle, it was probably mostly arm? Is that a weird sentence, or what!?!?

Ref18

Sounds like that is a standard overhead used at OABO clinics. Ron Belcher used it up here during a clinic before OFSAA this year.

Ren Gaudreau
Timmins

Others have given good advice, but, you were simply too close at trail. Trail means trail. You should stay behind the play at least 6 feet and more like 10, and off to the side about three feet. Yes, you are going to get beat, but staying in proper position will help you get in the right spot most of the time. I like the square analogy, sounds like a good diagram to use.

Ron Belcher is the education officer for my board. He's the one that taught me that.

And I don't think those are standard OABO overheads, because I've been to a couple of camps, and he's the only one that's ever brought up that idea.

[Edited by ref18 on Jul 26th, 2004 at 03:16 PM]