Pressing with a big lead

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by zebraman
One of the games on Sat morning was a mis-match between two 4A boys teams. After the game, the camp director gets the three officials together and tells them that they should have been calling fouls on the better team once the game was no longer in doubt. His quote was, "if a team is up by 30 and still pressing, you call a foul if they even so much as breathe on their opponent. It's called game management." Some of the other clinicians (all good and well-respected refs) agreed. I remained completely silent and wondered what Jurassic would have said.

I now duck and watch the volleys begin.

It's not that hard to justify, even to Jurassic. You use the language of advantage/disavantage. If Team A has been the state champions for the last 12 years and Team B is at the bottom of the league, and the score if 50 points separated by half-time (I've done a game or two like this), the logic runs like this:

Anything that Team A does gives them an advantage. That's because they're a lot better than Team B. So if what they are doing is illegal, it's an illegal advantage, and you have to call it. This doesn't mean that you're making anything up. It just means that with those borderline calls, you're calling stuff that you might not call in a game where the skill level is closer.

The real question is when Team B is in the double bonus, and they're not hitting their free throws, are you really doing them any favors?