off ball contact

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Splute

I was watching 6th grade AAU practice last night and noticed the coach teaching his player to physically keep the offensive player out of the paint. Watching the defensive player you would have thought he was going against a football blocking dummy. He was pushing with forearms, shoulders, basically anything he could do to hold him out. How much contact do officials allow (if any) on the off ball contact? Surely this would not be allowed in a game.

Coaches can teach whatever they want. It's up to the officials to make the call. Off-ball contact is in the POE's almost every year, both NCAA and FED. Ball-watching is the major culprit in missing off-ball contact. This 6th grade coach knows he's going to get mostly inexperienced refs for his games and inexperienced refs tend to ball-watch. That's coach has learned from experience that his players can get away with off-ball rough play.

If you ref one of his games you know what to look for.