Body Displacement

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by jeffpea
One of the things that disappoints me about conversations such as this one on this forum is that people tend to use extreme examples to illustrate their point. I'm not talking about either extreme in this case - a strong block w/ a slight touch on the shooter OR a strong block w/ a HUGE amount of contact.

I wish I had some video clips to illustrate my point. I officiate high school and college ball. The games that I do are usually pretty competitive with pretty good athletes. I will allow a player to block a shot cleanly "up top" and make contact (WITHIN REASON) with his body after blocking the shot. To me, that's a good defensive play. If there is an large amount of contact, then I've got to call a foul. If the defender has to go thru the shooter and sufficient contact occurs BEFORE the block - then I've got a foul.

The blocked shot is one of the more athletic or "beautiful" parts of the game. I prefer not to call a "game interrupter" if I can help it. Sometimes I can't - but I want to give the defender the benefit of the doubt if he has blocked the ball cleanly up top.

Jeff, you're using different examples yourself to try and make your point. And, Lah me, I'm getting sick of hearing tired mantras like "game interrupters" being cited when they aren't relevant at all to the play being discussed imo.

This play was set out fairly explicitly from the git-go.

You have a shooter who's already left his feet and committed himself to a shot. You have a defender who now comes from behind and makes contact with that shooter with sufficient force to not only to displace that shooter physically from his original airborne path but to also make the shooter fall on his a$$. Now, sometime while displacing the shooter and then subsequently dumping the shooter on his butt, the defender also happened to touch the ball.

That's the play we were asked about in the very first post in this thread. What disappoints me is people who now won't answer a very simple question--i.e. "Is that a foul or not?"

Jeff, if you hit an airborne shooter from behind, after that shooter has already left his feet, with enough force to not only displace that shooter from his original path but to knock him on his a$$ also, is that a foul or not? Yes or no? I just wanna know where you stand on this very particular play.

[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Jul 20th, 2005 at 05:57 AM]