I was watching a Euro League game with the new digital cable package that I just subscribed to. Not bad basketball; alot of the guys who played in the Olympics. About midway through the first half, the two TV announncers were talking about a foul that was called in transition. One of them says:"This is a case where a third official would really help". His partner agrees with him. Here's the kicker, they were using three officials. These guys may have been doing the announcing from a studio in North America as opposed to being there in person, still what an incredible statement to make.

LMFAO!!!:D

Just another reason why retired officials should be hired as commentators.

Maybe he meant that one of the officials was asleep.

I've seen some of that euroleage ball, and some of the positioning of FIBA's 3-man mechanics looks really wierd.

I saw that game. It was Tau and Benneton. I was going to post just as you did, but decided against it. Hilarious that someone else did though!

Ya, those announcers weren't good at all.

Some of the officiating was questionable. They showed 2 replays (at slo-mo) where fouls were called and both looked clean to me. It was good b/c the camera angle was almost in front of the players had they not moved to avoid the camera.

How long before we get one of Padgett's FEEBLE rants??:D

I think Padgett is out having a life or something.

It's distinctly possible that they were calling the game from a studio. And they may have been at the mercy of the camera angles or a small monitor, but yeah, they should know how many officials there are.

There are only two in the Olympics, right? That may have been where the confusion came in. They may have just assumed that Euro League basketball is like international basketball with two officials.

How come only retired officials can get this job? If somebody wants to pay me to talk about basketball on TV, I'd take it, and still do my little Freshman games during the week!

3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 3/4 . . . 1/2 . . .

Okay, so which is the immovable object, and which is the irresistable force? Would you bring announcing up to a new height, or would announcing bring you down to a new low?!?!? Would you start saying things like, "I don't know, Fred, it looked like a moving screen from here. I think they should have called that?" Or would your influence cause announcers everywhere to say, "I don't know, Fred, these refs are among the most highly trained professionals in the world. If they think it's a no-call, it's probably a great no-call."

Which would it be, Chuck?

I'd probably get fired after my first game for yelling, "WHACK HIM!!! WHACK HIM!!!" when a coach made a stupid 3-second comment.

Except FIBA plays metric rules:

3 ------ 2 ----- 1 ------ 0.75 ------ 0.5 -----

How about now? Maybe the announcers were counting how many officials in metric.