Foul while in the act???

[Damian]

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

[BBall_Junkie]

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.

[BktBallRef]

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.

[cmathews]

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

[mick]

Originally posted by Damian
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.

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

[paxsonref]

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. . . . .

[cmathews]

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

[BktBallRef]

Originally posted by cmathews
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

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!"

[paxsonref]

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

[Adam]

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).

[BktBallRef]

Originally posted by paxsonref
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

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?

[Adam]

Originally posted by paxsonref
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

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.

[paxsonref]

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***

[BBall_Junkie]

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.

[paxsonref]

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