The "And 1"

[SMEngmann]

I am with the school of thought that you need to get obvious contact and not worry about whether the ball goes in or not. I think it is an irritant to coaches, players and fans for an official to come in with an extremely late whistle when waiting to see if the ball goes in. At some point we need to make the judgement ourselves. I was told at a camp somewhere that the goal of officials is to blow all fouls on a "10." A 9 is somewhat acceptable, as is an 11, but anything before means you're anticipating and not seeing the whole play and anything later means you're indecisive.

I do think whether the ball goes in can be an indicator of what types of fouls you're calling, and if it goes in too often, it may indicate that you're calling too much marginal contact and need to figure out why. What I think, though, we need to avoid is the mentality that we won't call "and 1s" because this mentality can lead to officiating to avoid calling plays that exist, which leads us to letting too much go. Just my humble opinion though.