B-JV last night. A1 is going in for a layup. While in the act if shooting, but before the release, B1 fouls A1. It it not intentional, but enough contact to prevent the shot from being completed. At the last moment, A1 passes to A2 as my whistle goes off.

I called foul while shooting even though A1 passed after the foul. In my opinion, it looked like he was shooting and would have finished the shot had he not been fouled. Part of my reasoning was that if he had been fould sufficiently to prevent the release of the ball, he still would have been considered in the act of shooting.


The easy call would have been to spot it on the baseline.

I was a majority of one on the call and the coach called a timeout to ask me how I arrived at my opinion.

I would like to hear what y'all think of this.

Thanks,
DD

If you feel as though he was trying to shoot when the contact ocurred, then it is a shooting foul regardless of what happened after the whistle.

You made the correct call. If you judged the player to be in the act of shooting and that he subsequently passed the ball because he was foul, it's a shooting foul.

he passed it
 

If he passed it, then he was not in the act of shooting...sorry but I am in the minority also LOL :D

Damian,
I agree that we should not penalize for athletism.
Good call.
mick

No shots, the kid should know better than to pass, if he had enough room to pass the ball, he had enough room to toss it up towards the rim for a try. Alot of kids do jump passes. . . . .

hey what happened
 

Hey what happened to all of us that say we can't judge what a player is thinking....LOL if the end result is a pass, I have a hard time giving him 2 shots....imo :)

Re: hey what happened
 

When you whistled the foul, before he shot the ball, what did you think he was going to do? If he goes up, gets fouled and returns to the floor, are you going to give him 2 shots? If so, why? How could you know what he was thinking?

A couple of years ago, the rule was that a player who passed the ball from behind the 3 point arc, only to have the ball go in the basket, was only credited with 2 points. It wasn't a try. Someone asked, "How can you tell if it's a try?" My response, "If my hand goes up, to signal a 3, it's a try.

My point was that your first instinct is what you go with. If I whistle a foul and think the kid is going to shoot and then he passes because he was fouled, we're shooting 2.

Hell, we have enough problems not giving kids continuation as it is. It's the single most missed call in the game, "On the floor!" :(

What if a kid jumped up near the half court line and got fouled, then passed off to a teammate. . . he might have been shooting there too. . . . I'd say go with what actually happened as opposed to what you think maybe was going to happen

Normally, I'm with the common foul on this. However, it's possible that this kid thought he might not get the foul call; in which case an off-balance shot would be stupid. Without having seen the play, I can visualize a play where a player gets fouled pretty hard and decides to dump it off because he has no legitimate shot at the goal. I wouldn't want to penalize smart play because my whistle might have been a little late (in his mind).

Did you think he was going to shoot when he "jumped up near the half court line?" If so, it's a shooting foul. If you judge that he wasn't going to shoot, then it's not. It's no different than the original play. Make your judgment when you make the call and stick to it. Who gives a $hit what the coach thinks?

Since we're all quite capable of differentiating between a jump pass at half-court and a jump shot in the paint, your analogy falls short.
If B1 fouls A1 so hard he decides he can't get a good shot off, and we issue a common foul; we've just allowed B1 to gain an advantage with the foul.
I'm convinced now that we have to go with our instinct on this. Most of us have seen (and taken) enough jump shots to know what they look like.

of course I wasn't being serious about the half court shot, but my point is, alot of players today, moreso in the boys games have that jump pass where they appear to pull up to take a jumper, but are really faking that in order to pass to a teammate. And of course I never saw the play so you may have been right on with your call, my point is that if that ball gets passed off at the end, you better be 200% sure that he would have shot had he not been fouled, since we don't want to award freethrows that aren't merited either. We have all probably called shooting fouls where the player gets hit on the arm when the ball is still below his waist in the post and the contact forces him not to get the shot up, and in that situation, maybe he was actually going to pass, we never go to see the end result. . . . in this situation however, we did see the end result. . . he passed the ball. . . just use your judgement, but as I said, be sure you were right. . . .and as far as what the coaches think, you are right, who gives a s***

although I don't have my rule book with me (if someone does, it might help to post the actual rule to help paxonref out), the rules support shooting the FT if we, as officials, believe the intent was to shoot the ball when the foul occured. It does not matter what the player did after the whistle. As BktBallRef states, who cares what the coach or fans think. We need to call the play according to the rules. I think we need to have the intestinal fortitude to make the unpopular call when it needs to be made, otherwise you are penalizing one team or the other. If you are just ruling it a pass because ulitmately he passed the ball (after the contact) once the player realized he could not get a decent shot off, you are not doing your job in my opinion. This is where we as officials have to excercise judgement.

Instead of the half-court jump analogy (which I don't think fits very well here) lets consider the continuation play which Bktball ref alludes to. If I, as an official, feel as though the player has started his motion to shoot the ball, he then abosorbs contact, I let him finish the play and if he scores the bucket is good and we shoot 1. Again this is my judgement (much like the original post) as to whether or not I feel as though he has started his shooting motion.

slightly off topic, has anyone actually ever given a shooting foul from halfcourt or beyond? That would be something to see!

the original post showed that the ball was being passed at the same time the whistle was blown, not afterwards. . . and again, as you said, this is completely judgement, I just feel like stirring the pot a little today ;)

Exactly. Thanks for making our point.

So you are saying that we should have patient whistles and see the whole play before we call something?
I agree!

No - but I've seen one called. D-I, last game of the regular season, A1 heaves a halfcourt shot near the buzzer, and there's a bit of contact. B1 gets called for the foul, and A1 goes to the line for three shots.

Here's where it gets tricky.

First of all, I don't think the contact merited a foul (I'm a fan for A1) - the game was clearly over, A1 was just having fun, and it was light contact anyways.

Second, the clock read :00.0 when stopped after the whistle (no PT). I thought I heard the horn go off (this was a few seasons ago when the ruling was to go off of the horn, not the light), but we had a system where stopping the clock also cuts off the horn. (Note to AD's everywhere - do NOT get a system like this! The best kind are where stopping the clock after the horn has sounded makes the horn sound even longer.) Of course, there was no way for us to turn the clock back on to check whether any time remained, as that would have caused that miniscule amount of time to expire.

Third, A1 made some of the FT's, which later allowed him to set a school scoring record. Eventually, I think it was moot because we played far enough into post-season that he broke it comfortably, though.

No, wrong again. I'm echoing what Snaq already said. Don't penalize the player because he thinks you aren't going to whistle the foul.

Once the foul occurs, you've seen the whole play, everything that needs to be seen.

upon further review
 

Ok I have been thinking, which I know is of no consequence to anyone here, but I do it ocasionally LOL...I had to use the reversey psycology approach....If A1 is dribbling near the three point line and B1 commits a blocking foul, and when we blow the whistle A1 throws the ball up toward the hoop, we have to judge whether or not it was a try...usually it isn't even though the final act appears that way...so with that in mind I guess I can see giving the kid 2 shots even though he passed.....wow it sure is cool over here away from the dark side ;)

So do you blow your whistle at the first sign of contact?

" Once the foul occurs, you've seen the whole play, everything that needs to be seen. "

Have you ever waited when a player has been bumped on a drive to see if he gets past the defender for a layup?

The players should be taught not to worry about what the officals are doing anyway. And as I stated before. . . the call may have been 100% correct. . . the only thing I am saying is that we as officials should work to have that patient whistle, to see the whole play, then to take action on whether a foul is warranted, free throws should be given, or any other penalties should be asessed.

It seems as though too many officials have quick whistles which can get you in to trouble, and I don't necessarily mean from the coaches, but from the way a game should be called in general.

paxsonref,
Yes, see the entire play.
Use a slow whistle.

Tony's point was that, with regard to the initial post, most of us have already decided there was a shooting foul already... regardless of Fox time.
mick

D, out of curiousity, how did the coach take your explanation? I'm sure that was a fun exchange ;)

plus are we giving the kid too much credit? did he really have enough savvy to be able to process his thoughts in the air as he was being fouled, thinking. . . . hmmm doesn look like im gonna get a shooting foul out of this since I havent heard a whistle yet. . . . lets see, there is billy over there, I think I'll pass off to him :p

sorry, can you tell I've got the day off, have nothing better to do, and feel like playing devil's advocate?

In 8th grade, I picked up my 4th foul on a 3/4 court shot just before half time. They gave him free throws. Cost us the game. ;)

Ouch!

Those damn officials, costing another team a game. . . :p

If he had passed after the whistle was blown, I'd be more inclined to think he was trying to pass the whole time. I'm picturing a play where the player gets hit, the ref holds the whistle for just a second to see the whole play, the player decides in mid-air that he won't get a decent shot and passes to a teammate, the ref calls the foul.

Cute. It would be more like:

"I'm gonna shoot." "Ouch. no whistle, can't shoot. Where's billy?"

Snaqwells,
I tried to average 4-1/2 fouls a game, but I liked to use all 4 quarters. :cool:
mick

I hear that billy is quite the ball player too! :p

I led the team in fouls that year, but this was my worst game. Fouled out a couple of minutes into the 3rd quarter. :)

That's a completely different discussion, one that I'll be gald to have if you want to start a separate discussion.

But once the foul, NOT CONTACT, occurs, there's no reason to wait for anything else.

Damian:

This play is a good example of seeing the whole play. You were correct in sounding your whistle when the foul occurred, and your were correct is stating that had B1’s contact prevented A1 from releasing the ball, A1 has to be considered to have been fouled in the act of shooting. But B1’s contact did not keep A1 from releasing the ball for either a shot or pass. Therefore, you have to wait to see the whole play to determine whether B1’s foul was a common foul or a foul against a player in the act of shooting.

MTD, Sr.

4-2 states in part......"and if pivoting or stepping when fouled, may complete the usual foot or body movement in any activity while holding the ball"...

I would be inclinced to blow the whistle and wait for the player to complete the play.

If he proceeds to attempt a shot I would put him on the line.

If he passes the ball I would give him the ball OOB.