Hello.

For those that follow that NFL, you know that the Superbowl crew has often come out of the wild card round. (I don't kow why I just said that - everyone follows the NFL! :)) Anyways, we (in the football section) are pretty good at predicting the Superbowl officials.

Is there a pattern that arises in the tournament? Perhaps the officials that referee the Elite Eight and on are rather predictable, and if we don't see them in the mid-rounds, can we expect to see them next weekend?

I don't care who they are, as long as the wear shorts and fishnets. :p

Cartmell, Edsal, and Burr from the two games played today.

Is that a prediction, BBR?

Yes, it is. I'd say those three will work sometime next weekend.

I thought you meant they were NC officials. ;)

I'd say Burr (b/c he properly ruled on the 3-pointer. Hightower. 3rd, I say Cartmell.)

Anyone else?

Hightower will be there. STL is basically in his backyard.

That does it. I"m calling Mary tomorrow!

Ed only lives about 20 minutes from the Savvis Center. They can even save some money on his travel and hotel. Besides that, he probably deserves to be there as much as anyone.

I would say the following people have the best shot at working this weekend.

Burr, Hightower, Tim Higgins, John Higgins, Cartmell, Hall, Libbey, Cahill, Welmer. The alternate is anybody's guess, but I would say Verne Harris because he worked the national championship last year.

And I venture to say that Burr, Hightower, and Libbey work next Monday night.

Larry Rose maybe?

I'd like to see Rose, Hess, and Hartzell. :D

I don't think Hall worked the elite 8 so I doubt he will be there. I actually thought I saw him but his name isn't in the box score....and don't count out McCall who worked the NC last year...and worked the illinois OT game saturday...

The title of your thread is "Final Four AND NC Officials."

Hightower won't be selected just because he lives outside St. Louis, in Alton I beleive. If he's selected, it'll be based on what he's done this year.

David Hall worked the Carolina-Villanova game. I don't think any of the guys who worked the Regional Semis worked the Finals. But I haven't check the boxscores.

The 10 officials selected to work the Final Four (9 floor officials and 1 alternate) will come from the 36 officials that worked the regional semi's and regional finals.

By the way, Hartzell will definitely NOT work the Final Four this year - he declined his NCAA tourney assignments this year.

Not necessarily from last weekend
 

The guys that work the Final Four won't necessarily have worked the second weekend of the tournament. In 2003, Mike Kitts worked the first weekend (the memorable moment being when he threw out the Cincinnati radio color-commentator after Huggins' ejection), didn't work any regional semis or finals, and then got the call to work the Final Four.

How could you miss him? :D

I think if anyone new will make it to the Final Four it could be Bruce Hicks. I think someone else will make an appearance that hasn't been mentioned.

SHORTS AND FISHNETS!!! What sport are you thinking of?

ROFLMAO

MTD, Sr.

Reggie Greenwod Going For First Time
 

From what I know, Reggie Greenwood, is going for his first time. Some of the others are Burr, Hightower, Cahill, Bob Donato, and Larry Rose will be the Alternate.

Thanks for the information. We will know soon enough as the weekend is fast approaching on who will be in St. Louis.

No Gerald Boudreaux? I know he had a pretty good run for a while. I'm curious because I interviewed him a couple of times (not about officiating) and we live in cities about an hour apart. Oh yeah, no "TV" Teddy Valentine?

I hope some year Welmer gets the nod.

Was really impressed this past weekend with Bruce Hicks. I know that he isnt one of those guys that travels around the country and does the Nation TV games, but I think Bruce is as solid as they come. Nice job Bruce.

Mighty

Re: Reggie Greenwod Going For First Time
 

Man, that would be great. I like Reggie a lot. I've met him a couple times. I'll be rooting for him.

I vote for Chuck, ref18, and Juulie.

Re: Reggie Greenwod Going For First Time
 

It's not like I have a scoreboard or anything, but John Cahill seems like he works the FF less than one would think given his experience.

He seems like he's a very formal, old school guy -- I noticed at the Tucson subregional this year that during the breaks and stuff he stood as far away from the other two officials as he could -- watching his bench from virtually the far corner of the court.

Here is what I know...Jim Burr, Larry Rose, Ed Hightower, Bob Donato, Verne Harris, Doug Shows, Randy McCall, Reggie Greenwood, John Cahill. Not for sure on the remaining name though. This comes from very good source that I work baseball with.

[Edited by johnSandlin on Apr 1st, 2005 at 09:11 AM]

Good Call JS:
 

The officials for the semis were:

Louisville - Illinois Jim Burr, Ed Hightower, Doug Shows
Michigan State - North Carolina Bob Donato, Reggie Greenwood, Randy McCall

If your source is reliable (100 % so far), then tonight's officials will be Larry Rose, Verne Harris and John Cahill.

Unfortunately, I missed the games on Saturday due to a power outage. Did anyone see who the alternate is?

As I'm from St. Louis, I tend to follow Hightower. There was a big article in the local paper about him and he works for Illinois in the school system, so I don't really know if he's eligble to referee them. But he did in the Final Four, so he'll probably be there.

I was also kind of surprised that even the officials don't know if they're working it until a few days before it happens.

I'm pretty sure I saw Larry Rose during the first game sitting at the scorer's table. That means he'd be the alternate for all three games, meaning we're still missing one official.

As for Welmer, keep wishing. A source I have says he'll never get in the Final Four. I wish he'd make it, too.

Why is that?

Monday officials
 

John Cahill, Ed Corbett & Verne Harris

Re: Monday officials
 

This cracks me up! :D

ghostref posts his first message and it's contents are specifying the officials for tonight.

Welcome to the forum!

Sounds like an excellent crew, I have had the pleasure of attending Mr. Harris' clinic, and I have yet to meet a more engaging and personable official in my sorted basketball career (6 years offficiating, three years coaching, and over thirty years playing...) As far as Mr. Cahill and Mr. Corbert, I have not had the oppoortuntiy to meet either...but I must admit to watching college basketball just to see the officials, and to my knowledge, the games I have watched; both have done an excellent job. That is why I like watching female bball because it seems that they have wider camera angles and I get to watch the officials more.

Re: Re: Monday officials
 

...figured I'd jump in with both feet.

I'm not a big fan of Corbett. He seems a little stand-offish on the court to me sometimes. However, I do realize my opinion means nothing, and he's doing the national championship game, and I sure as heck am not. Congrats to all three.

BTW, I believe this will be Verne Harris' second consecutive NC game. I remember him from working mostly in the PAC-10, but I noticed he worked some in the Big XII this year as well.

Corbett and Cahill are northeastern guys who work alot in the Big East and the smaller conferences up yonder, like the MAAC and the Patriot, I believe.

This is Verne Harris' second championship game in a row. I wonder if he was the R (let's see who bites :D)?

BITS, are you serious? This one makes me laugh :D

He did not throw up the ball. Not sure if he was the Referee or not. ;)

Peace

Actually he did toss the ball. But you added the wink so we are on seeing eye to eye. ;)

It looked like a white guy that threw up the ball. Verne is rather light-skinned. So with the bright lights, I could have been mistaken.

Peace

Verne also works the MWC which makes 3 out of 6 officials that work my favorite conference LOL McCall and Harris last year and Harris again this year..... woooo hoooooo... LOL :D

Cahill and Corbett
 

John Cahill is finally starting to get the recognition he deserves. In addition to the other conferences Trigger mentioned, he also picked up a limited ACC schedule this year.

I agree that Corbett can be standoffish with coaches at times, but he always maintains a great rapport with the table, has great court awareness and works incredibly hard. Last year, he hurt his knee during the season. He had surgery, rehabbed it and was back on the court in three weeks. I saw his first game back and he was as sharp as if he'd never missed any time on the court.

Corbett did in fact throw the toss.

Can someone who recorded the game chime in here. I specifically watched this for some reason. I say it was Harris. I was paying attention to Verne to see where he went and noticed he was acting a little jumpy at first like another official form out that way.

FWIW
 

I'm watching the game for the second time. Some things I've noticed:

Officials - I don't know the officials by name. But the black official tossed the ball. The shorter, white official with the bald spot administered the throw-in to start the second half.

Fouls on Augustine - Only ONE of the fouls called on Augustine had him fouling May. He was called for a block on Felton, he hacked Felton on a drive and then hacked Manuel for a foul, before pushing M. Williams with both hands for his 5th.

Give the foul to someone else - On his 4th foul, someone made the remark that the foul could have been called on another Illinois player. Not true! Powell had LGP and was standing strong. Augustine simply reached for the ball and hacked Manuel across the arm. No reson to give the foul to anyone else.

Contact - The officials allowed a lot of body contact and were consistent with it all night. They allowed contact on layups, drives and screens. But, they also allowed May to move at will with the ball in the paint. Most of the fouls were called when defenders used their hands.

Screens - There were many times the screener moved and the Carolina defender just moved around the screener or the secondary defender easily picked up the opponent.. But there were definitely some illegal screens. For example, Williams hit a 3 at the 14 minute mark where Powell completely blocked Felton with an illegal screen. It got worse later in the second half but I guess since the allowed body contact all game, they didn't want to call illegal screens late in the game. Still not sure I agree with the reasoning though, as some were very obvious. It's a good thing John Chaney wasn't coaching.

Overall - They let the kids play and let them decide the game.

Finally - I've never seen so damn many commercials in all my life!!! :mad:

Ed Corbett, John Cahill, Verne Harris

Re: FWIW
 

1. Agree. Augustine looked like he wanted that foul.

2. Tell ya the truth, I saw some iffy screeens in the first half, nothing worse than borderline. I didn't see anything in the second half that was anything different. I agree they called the obvious the entire game.

I knew their names, just wasn't positive who was who.

Re: FWIW
 

Thank you. I knew for a fact Harris tossed the ball. I was playing close attention to him after the toss. Illinois won the toss, went to the left and Harris was Trail on the table side.

One thing I noticed watching the tournament was that the referees helped a lot of fallen players up off the floor and many other nice things like that.

I notice that a number of officials do not stop when reporting to the table, they continue to walk while reporting their signal to the table. I was always taught to stop, get a window and report...is this an antiquated mechanic because seemingly all of the officials in the NCAA tend to report on the move...I would like to know the correct answer, so that I am able to do it right...last year when I attended camp the camp I attended was still teaching to stop and report. Thanks in advance for your valued advice.

The NFHS mechanic is to stop.

That is not necessarily true in the NCAA.

In the NCAA the "reporting area" seems to be much bigger than NFHS mechanics state.

NCAA officials are allowed to move while reporting fouls, is what I've been taught at camps. Also, to report fouls, officials do not need to go to the "rectangular box," as in NFHS mechanics. All they have to do is clear and report.

It depends on the assigner. Fred Barakat doesn't want officials reporting on the move in the ACC, Colonial and Big South.

Exactly. Which is why I wrote, "That is not necessarily true in the NCAA." Some assignors do have different requirements.

This is not true for men's games, I don't think. I've never heard that it's allowable. The women "walk-and-talk", NBA style; but not the guys.

There are, of course, officials who are well-enough established that they don't have to worry about any of their mechanics; and so they may report on the move. But, by the book, I don't think this is an option for most of us lowly D3 guys.

Thanks Chuck,

I just wanted to make sure it was not some type of change I wasn't privileged to...I spend most of the time watching games, watching officials, in an effort to get better. I appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge and experience.

For those of you wondering who tossed for last Monday's game, checkout the "Leading Off" section of this week's Sports Illustrated (on the bottom right of the right page). It looks like it was Harris.

Attaboy, The New Guy!
Welcome to the forum. :)
mick

Chuck's right. However they still want the women's officials to get close enough to the table so they can hear before they start.(while still walking) Men's mechanic is to clear the players and stop to report, not necessarily in any box.

That's correct. I posted a couple of pages ago that it was Corbett, but the SI picture proves me wrong. I can't hide my lyin' eyes!!!

As we all know ... The film never lies!

Tom Eades
 

Does Tom have a chance to call the final four this year?????

Considering that this thread started in 2005, I think we would have to know what happens when the actual tournament starts. We do not even know who is going to be working for certain yet. And what happens in the actual games and who works them is going to be a determining factor.

Peace

Are you related to the famous whistle blower Dancing Donnie??????

No.

Peace

Sorry, he was the best!