"Team Control" Mechanics

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Rich Fronheiser

Some of us don't care which hand we use. I use my left hand on some fouls, the right on others.

And if I was in the stands evaluating you........

You'd see nothing on the sheet. If I ever tried to put down "called foul with wrong hand", I 'd burst out laughing before I could finish. As you said though, some do care. Ya gotta know your audience.

On the "stop clock" signal though, I have seen that one come into play. Playdowns and the evaluators gotta choose someone to go to the next round or a championship game....you have 2 officials that are about as close in actual game-calling ability as you can find..... the official using the "stop-clock" signal will get the nod because whoever is evaluating has to have some kinda reason for choosing one official over another. That might be the only one that they can find.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

And if I was in the stands evaluating you........

You'd see nothing on the sheet. If I ever tried to put down "called foul with wrong hand", I 'd burst out laughing before I could finish. As you said though, some do care. Ya gotta know your audience.

On the "stop clock" signal though, I have seen that one come into play. Playdowns and the evaluators gotta choose someone to go to the next round or a championship game....you have 2 officials that are about as close in actual game-calling ability as you can find..... the official using the "stop-clock" signal will get the nod because whoever is evaluating has to have some kinda reason for choosing one official over another. That might be the only one that they can find.

Depends where you are. I've seen a lot of college officials on TV working our state tourney the past few seasons and none of them even bother with the mechanic.

If I was evaluating (and I have in the past), I would only dock for mechanics that looked robotic or clunky or made it difficult for people to understand what the official was calling.

For example, I see a lot of JV officials around here stop the clock on an out of bounds violation and then simply say the color shirt while the hand stays up as if they don't know which way to point. Sitting in the stands, I have no idea which direction that official called until the ball's put in play. THAT would lose points.

A solid point accompanied by the shirt color with no stop clock mechanic would not cost on an evaluation.

[BillyMac]

I hate to admit this, but twice this year, during a throw-in situation, as the nonadministering official, I've seen illegal screens by the offensive team, and used the punch signal to indicate a team control foul. In the first case my partner told me that the ball hadn't been inbounded yet, so no team control, and no team control foul. The second time, after I punched, I observed that the inbounder still had the ball, and I gave the correct signals at the table. The only good thing about this is that it proves that I'm not looking outside my primary and "ball watching".