Just got back from being a clinician at a weekend ref camp. I know there have been some back-and-forth threads on here about whether or not officials should just keep calling the game "straight up" when one team has a huge lead and continues to press.

The guy running this camp does D2, D3 and gets either a semi or a state championship every time he goes to a boys state HS tourney. One of the most respected refs around. His assistant also does some D2 and is one of the elite HS refs in the state.

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. :D

Z

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?

I'm with the camp director. If a team is up by 30 and still pressing they better be seriously playing defense with their feet, keeping their hands way off, and be playing a clean enough game to pass a white glove test. There's a huge difference between winning a game and humiliating an opponent.

I'm not going to make stuff up but what I judge as incidental contact goes way down on the team leading big and pressing.

One, I think it's unsporting.

Two, if the losing team is clearly frustrated, tempers can easily flare, especially if the poor team's lack of ability leads to them fouling the better team a lot. If they perceive it's 7 or 8 on 5, it's the good team that will suffer. Calling a few cheap ones on the winning team can keep tempers in check.

If it is a running clock, the sooner we get to bonus the better!!!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rainmaker

Quote:

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?

In a post about "Game Management," Jurassic had called this practice unfair and favoritism. Others had agreed. Besides, the camp director wasn't talking about borderline calls. My personal philosophy is that you do "move the line" a little bit, but I'm not going to make anything up. I will tighten it up on team A though if B is getting humiliated but I'm not going to make it obvious to everyone in the gym.

Z

[QUOTE]Originally posted by zebraman

Quote:

Originally posted by rainmaker Quote: 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? In a post about "Game Management," Jurassic had called this practice unfair and favoritism. Others had agreed. Besides, the camp director wasn't talking about borderline calls. My personal philosophy is that you do "move the line" a little bit, but I'm not going to make anything up. I will tighten it up on team A though if B is getting humiliated but I'm not going to make it obvious to everyone in the gym. Z

My understanding in that post was that Jurassic didn't always realize what others were talking about in terms of the seriousness of the contact. Also, there were a few who were advocating making things up, and also letting everything go on the other team. I thought he was responding more to those things than to "moving the line a little bit" as you so eloquently put it.

Juulie - don't you think this can be construed as penalizing team A for having superior skills? What happened to the theory of "if a foul is a foul at the beginning, it's a foul at the end - if it isn't, then it isn't"?

I have to say, you cannot make up calls to penalize the superior team. I have been told by some very well known D1 officials that game management is keeping the ball in the losing team hands by staying within the rules and do not make it seems as if you are favoring the losing team with what appears as made up calls.

That's just it, it's a theory. All theories sound great in abstract, but few hold up as well in practice.

I guess, part way through a game, none of us have ever conversed with our partner(s) and decided to "tighten" it up? I mean, we were not calling some of that a foul at the beginning of the game, but NOW the game dictates it needs to be one.

IMO...this is a correct statement from an experienced official.

IMO...an inexperienced official should stay away from these murky waters. Just call the game and the other game management skills will come later.

As the director said...its about "game management". A coach knows when an experienced official is getting a point across...a coach might not appreciate or understand the "point" the inexperienced (and often times inconsistent) official is trying to get across.

To sum it up...you better have some credability, as an official, when you use these "game management" techniques.

B.S. Pure and simple. Maybe he was exaggerating to make his point. But if you're going to call fouls b/c the pressing team plays tight defense, that's not game management.

I will agree with the people here who have said they will adjust their judgment on how much contact gives the defense an unfair advantage. A small handcheck may be a big advantage. But a double-team in the backcourt should not automatically mean that you call a foul on one of the defenders, simply b/c they're close enough to "breathe" on the ball handler.

What can happen if you start making "sympathy" calls is that the winning team gets frustrated and decides that if they're going to get called for fouls, then they're going to actually commit them. That's not a good situation, and you've ended up by "managing" your game into the toilet.

In the other thread, the thing that I disagreed with was NOT the opinion that we should tighten up on the winning team. What I disagreed with was the statement that we should refrain from putting the winning team on the line. Different issue for me.

It's not that hard to justify, even to Jurassic.

[/B][/QUOTE]Wrong.

Completely wrong.

What happened to the theory of "if a foul is a foul at the beginning, it's a foul at the end - if it isn't, then it isn't"? [/B][/QUOTE]It just went down the sh!tter along with the allied concepts of calling it both ways, calling it the same at either end, being fair, not injecting your own philosophies into the game, not favoring one team over another, etc., etc.

It just went down the sh!tter along with the allied concepts of calling it both ways, calling it the same at either end, being fair, not injecting your own philosophies into the game, not favoring one team over another, etc., etc.

[/B][/QUOTE]

Thank you, JR. In a rec league, I might say something to the coach of a team way up late who is still pressing, but that's about as far as I will take it.

If anyone really feels that a team doing this is unsportsmanlike, then call a technical for unsportsmanlike conduct. Since we all know this wouldn't fly, IMO (notice I never say IMHO ;) ) where is the logical extension of making calls a certain way in this circumstance because you think one team is acting in an unsportsmanlike manner?

In other words, the rulebook doesn't state this is unsportsmanlike play, so we shouldn't take it upon ourselves to make calls a certain way because we think so.

Perhaps the solution would be to add a rule that makes it a violation (or technical after a warning) if a team presses after they get a certain lead.