Illegal Pick

[Kelly Kinghorn]

Why the big deal with semantics? Our job, after we call a foul, is to communicate what happened to the scorer. The coaches will generally watch this so they know what was called. Using a term like "illegal pick" tells everyone what they want to know. We call rebound fouls "pushes" when a player goes "over the back" of an opponent or we use an illegal use of hands signal when an defender "reaches in" and makes illegal contact with a ballhandler.

I am not advocating using all of these common terms when we report fouls, but I think that we need to effecively communicate with the people involved in the game. If an official uses the term "reach in" at the table, is that wrong? I am not sure that it is, but if the proper #, color and signal are also used, the scorer and coach know what was called andc that is what we are trying to accomplish.

BTW, I generally do not verbalize what the foul was, I only give color, number and the signal, but that's just me.