Incidental Contact
 

NCAA Sect. 36 Art. 3 - Contact that does not hinder normal defensive and offensive movement shall be viewed as incidental.

I noticed the specifics of this rule a month or two ago and have not been able to reconcile that with a lot of fouls I have seen called. This goes against a lot of "old fashion" 3-pt. plays, rebounding fouls, some of my previous posts (specifically about a defender fishing around for the ball while "reaching-in" from behind), and other fouls I thought were good calls.
I could go on with the list, but you know what I mean. The wording leaves alot of room for contact to be incidental.

Thoughts - IMOs?

Welcome to the world of real judgment.:D

Why call a foul if no one was disadvantaged by the contact?

Why call the foul if calling it will actually reward the player committing the foul by stopping the play?

There is contact on every trip down the floor, the key is seeing the entire play and having a patient whistle

As you get more experienced and do more and more games, you'll understand incidental contact more and get more comfortable with it.

And it will never be a science for you. I still have games where I have a whistle that I wish I had passed on and games where I let something go that I wish I woul have grabbed. That's what makes this whole thing fun and challenging.

Z

SamIAm -- you have found one of the two attributes that delineate the outstanding, good, and average officials: judgement. The other skill/ability is dealing with people.

If you the judgement to apply the rules of the game and the "people skills" to manage the various situations that occur, then you will rise to the highest levels officiating.

Sam,

The rules are pretty much the same in other codes of basketball as it relates to incidental contact. This is why so much of what we do is based on a lot of judgment. Not all contact is a foul and not all contact should be called as a foul. This is what separates from the successful official to the not very successful official.

Peace

One of the SEC official's observers I know is always saying that we don't need game interrupters. An example of this would be a kid going over the back of another kid and having sufficient enough contact to call a foul, but the player in front still gets the rebound and the contact doesn't cause him to fall or walk. That is just interrupting the game when you could keep the flow going.

I'm only adding my two bits' worth here because of the comment on 3-pt. plays. A lot of times, guys just figuring out the incidental contact stuff start thinking that if a shooter makes his shot, he couldn't have possibly been disadvantaged by the contact.

This just isn't true. If the contact makes the shot more difficult, then it's a foul (assuming responsibility belongs to the defender).

That's true about 95% of the time. However, there are some times when you need to make that foul call even if the "right team" gets the rebound. Having a feel for the game is key.

If you have a game that is starting to get a little squirrely and the rebound foul is hard enough to possibly lead to some frustration, you might need a whistle.

No game is exactly the same. Officials need to be able to see the whole picture in the game, not just the single play that is happening at the time.

Z

Not trying to be funny, but you see 3 point plays all the time on D1 and NBA ball. It is very obvious that you can have a foul and a shot too when you watch very experienced officials to their thing.

I would like to disagree with the point about the contact though. It would depend on who caused the contact. A lot of times we call fouls on contact when the defender did nothing wrong (verticality and contact with the ball). I know that is likely not what you are saying but I felt that needed to be pointed out.

Peace

Agreed, Rut, that's why I qualified it with my parenthetical statement, "(assuming responsibility belongs to the defender)."

;)

Judgement, judgement. But some criteria and philosophy are needed. I have vacillated over my career about the following call. Player driving to the basket on a clear path and the sole defender reaches and tags him slightly without interferring with him. Whistle, whistle. Saw it several times in March Madness games by big officials. Player scores. Wipe it out. OOb or shoot the fouls. If the big guys call this incidental contact, "non-incidental", am I and you to do otherwise. What say you.

The "big officials" aren't 100% perfect. They have whistles that they wish they could have back too. Ideally, you'd like to delay your whistle on this play. If the contact doesn't affect the driver, let it go. If it ends up being more than incidental, call it. Sometimes, "late is great." It's an art not a science. Like anything else, you'll get better at it with practice.

Z

I agree totally

Sometimes there are calls that just need to be made even if technically, they don't completely fall under the "gained advantage" thinking.

Don't misunderstand: I lean on the side of a no-call when I can, but sometimes the situation dictates that a call needs to be made. A slap on the arm, even if the slap is not hard and has little or no impact on the driving shooter still needs to be called -- unless its a 40 point game with 10 seconds left! There are ALWAYS exceptions to everything.