Question

[Brad]

Brendan is a big time fanboy -- you should have seen him crying after Duke lost their first round game!!!

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Ch1town

JRut-
I'm not saying that it helps me currently, but when I began finding my way (transitioning from a ref to an official) that philosophy helped me understand how to make those calls correctly.

80/20 won't allow you to make this mistake per your statement: "If the defender did nothing illegal (got to the ball first) the contact can be severe and I am not calling a foul".

Really?

The defensive player runs and flies toward the shooter clearly blocking the shot. The defensive mans momentum carries him into the shooter who has returned to the floor and knocks the shooter to the floor. This is a foul and needs to be called.

Then you need to read Rule 4-27-1 which says: "The mere fact that contact occurs does not constitute a foul. When 10 players are moving rapidly in a limited area, some contact is certain to occur."

Then you need to read 4-27-2 which says: "Contact which occurs unintentionally in an effort by an opponent to reach a loose ball or contact which may result when opponents are in equally favorable positions to perform normal defensive and offensive movements, should not be considered illegal, even though the contact may be severe."

Then you need to read 4-27-3 which says: "Similarly, contact which does not hinder the opponent from participating in a normal defensive and offensive movements should be considered incidental."

I am using the wording of the rulebook. Now you are using a philosophy that does not even go along with the wording of the rulebook or based on what is reality. How do you measure 80% contact?

Also you may feel that needs to be called, I feel it does not. And nothing you say is going to change my mind. Why, because I have come to the conclusion based on my experience that I have almost never seen a block without some contact. So if a defender makes a block, the defender better have purposely done something to get a foul called on them if they got to the ball first. If I use your logic, then every time someone goes to the basket and is defended hard, we have to call a foul. Sorry, that is not very good officiating from my point of view.

Peace

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Brad

80/20, advantage/disadvantage, just call the freaking foul, etc. -- it's all saying the same thing, just in different ways.

Amen!

And the simpler explanations are also the best imo. All you're gonna get from newer officials is glazed eyes when you get into some of the terminology now being used at some camps. Each level of play has different levels of expectation also when it comes to the amount of physical contact that comprises a foul. At higher levels, you're usually expected to play through a heckuva lot more contact that might get called a foul(and rightly so) at, say, the JV level.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Brad

Brendan is a big time fanboy -- you should have seen him crying after Duke lost their first round game!!!

Please tell me you're kidding. Please tell me that the lad isn't a closet Dookie. Hell, he's a Texan. Isn't there some kinda law down there against being that? If not, there should be!

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by Old School

Damn it, I don't know how you get there from here but you do. I did not deliberately do anything wrong.

You really don't know how he got there? How about:

Originally Posted by Old School

If I screw it up on this end of the court, then it's going to be a foul on the other end. That's all you can do on this type of play.

That's what we are giving you grief about. Not the fact that if it's a (legitimate) foul on one end that it will be a foul on the other end. What the problem is, as you stated, "ok, I screwed up on one end, so just to be consistent, I will continue to screw up on both ends".

C'mon now, even you should know that a wise man once said, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

[Old School]

Originally Posted by NewNCref

I think you're wrong here. If these are close calls we're talking about, which you said earlier they are, I doubt an official is going to get suspended or not assigned more games for the simple fact that they called one close play one way and another another way. I doubt any assigner is going to look at that and say, you know, that's a rotten official treating one team unfairly.

I do agree that we need to be consistent in determining what is and what is not a foul, and hopefully we would be consistent throughout a game. But I don't think that close calls going one way or the other is going to get you in too much trouble.

The only problem here is consistentcy. This was the talk of the NCAA finals. If I got a big kid, Oden, and he commits a foul, and the big kid from the other team (Georgetown) on the same play doesn't get a foul. If I'm the visiting team. I want to know what's going on and I will raise that issue with the assigners.

Keep it fair and I got outplayed. Not calling the same type of fouls on both ends of the court means one team has a huge advantage. Not last year but the years before. This was notorius in the WNBA finals. Bill Lambier put a stop to that in his games. He came unglued, he challenged the league, and you know what, he was right because I saw the same thing.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Old School

I put air in the whistle, defense. However, I wish I would have passed because it was a good block. Too late, I already called it, can't take it back, it happens. I looked like and felt like an amatuer making that call.

I don't 2nd guess myself here, I just try to be consistent. If I screw it up on this end of the court, then it's going to be a foul on the other end. That's all you can do on this type of play.

There's your statements, Old School. My original response to you was deleted. I'll repeat it, maybe toned down a little.

That might be the most single ridiculous piece of bad advice made in the history of this forum. It's completely asinine. You're advocating that an official should continue to make similar bad calls in the name of consistency. Iow if you make a terrible call at one end, make sure that you make the same terrible call at the other end. And then repeat the process to show that you're consistent. You're showing yourself to be consistent alright. Consistently bad and consistently wrong.

Lah me......un-freaking-believable!

[Old School]

Originally Posted by M&M Guy

That's what we are giving you grief about. Not the fact that if it's a (legitimate) foul on one end that it will be a foul on the other end. What the problem is, as you stated, "ok, I screwed up on one end, so just to be consistent, I will continue to screw up on both ends". C'mon now, even you should know that a wise man once said, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

That's just the way you're reading into it. Yes, I screwed up, kicked it, whatever term you want to spin on it. The fact of the matter is I can't take it back. We got to move forward. The same type of play, the same type of defense, the same type of contact will be a foul down there too. As I'm walking to the table, the coach says he's just standing there. I say, coach, I just made the same call down there! Case closed. Going the other route and being inconsistent is wrong to me, but that's just my opinion.

[Old School]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

There's your statements, Old School. My original response to you was deleted. I'll repeat it, maybe toned down a little.

That might be the most single ridiculous piece of bad advice made in the history of this forum. It's completely asinine. You're advocating that an official should continue to make similar bad calls in the name of consistency. Iow if you make a terrible call at one end, make sure that you make the same terrible call at the other end. And then repeat the process to show that you're consistent. You're showing yourself to be consistent alright. Consistently bad and consistently wrong.

Lah me......un-freaking-believable!

As ususal, just like Joey, you jumped to 99, extreme, with you, super extreme! Dial it back a little, be reasonable. Nobody is advocating calling bad calls but you.

The OP said he had contact, but the guy blocked the shot. I had the exact same thing happen the other day. I had contact and then the defender got up and blocked the shot. I could have passed on it, but I had a whistle. Damn, too late now. Tell me how many times this has happen in your careers. Be honest with yourself. Me, I'm not losing any sleep over it JR because I accept the fact that I am not perfect. We're shooting 2 shots.

Down on the other end, similiar play, similiar contact, defense blocks the shot, beep, we're shooting two. That be the way it is....

[MajorCord]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Lah me......un-freaking-believable!

OK, I'm probably going to regret this...but someone please tell me what "lah me" means. I can't figure it out.

Usually I can figure out these "text abbreviations".

[mick]

Originally Posted by Brad

Brendan is a big time fanboy -- you should have seen him crying after Duke lost their first round game!!!

Well he can start fanning for the Duke Women now.
They just got a marvelous coach from Michigan State.

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by Old School

That's just the way you're reading into it. Yes, I screwed up, kicked it, whatever term you want to spin on it.

Huh? What "spin" are you talking about? It's a direct quote from your post.

Originally Posted by Old School

The same type of play, the same type of defense, the same type of contact will be a foul down there too.

Agreed. As long as the call was correct on one end, it will be a correct call on the other end. Consistency has to do with be consistently correct - from play to play, between officials, between games, from night to night. If, in your opinion, a certain type of contact should be called a foul, then yes, be consistent with continuing to call that foul. And, as a crew, your partners should call that same contact as a foul as well. But if I make a mistake, I will not make a second, third or fourth incorrect call in the name of consistency. That is as silly as a player telling a coach, "Sorry I missed that free throw coach, but I'll go ahead and miss the rest of them so I can consistent." If I make a bad call, I will work even harder to make sure I don't make that same call again.

[mick]

Originally Posted by MajorCord

OK, I'm probably going to regret this...but someone please tell me what "lah me" means. I can't figure it out.

Usually I can figure out these "text abbreviations".

Oh, Lawdy!
Lawdy, me!
Good, Lord!
Oh, Lord!
Heaven's Sakes!
Oh, my!

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Ch1town

Jurrasic, I value your opinions & think you provide the forum with great knowledge, in fact I was hoping to see you chime in with some answers to my OP.
The 80/20 principle helped me alot because as we know any yahoo can blow a whistle & call fouls, but a good official has a feel for the game & can determine whether certain contact warrants a foul being called. 80/20 is good way to make good block shots calls vs. a foul IMHO.

I'm sorry for not responding earlier; I simply did not see this post. My apologies.

I'll try to answer it the best way that I can, bearing in mind that there really is no way to definitively answer the questions that have arisen imo.

Calling a foul for contact on a block attempt is a straight judgment call imo. The rules give us some guidance, but they don't cover all situations, also imo. For instance, NFHS case book play 4.19.3SitB states that you you should call an intentional foul if defensive contact from behind puts the shooter on the floor, even though the defender may have gotten "all ball" on the block. The bottom line though is that each individual official has to judge whether the contact that occurs on plays like these is incidental contact or illegal contact. The gray area also increases when you move from level to level. More physical contact is expected at the D1 level as opposed to, say, the JV high school level. Some D1 conferences are traditionally known for allowing a greater level of contact also.

Each official usually formulates their own tolerance level through experience and also by observing fellow local officials when it comes to the amount of contact that they will allow during a shot. As I said, it's simply a judgment call by the calling official anyway. Hopefully, you end up calling the contact consistently and evenly at both ends of the court. Players and coaches need those guidelines established so that they know what they can do and not do in that particular game.

Note that the "consistency" that I'm talking about sureasheck is not Old School's brand of consistency where he is advocating repeating bad calls.

80/20 is completely meaningless in the context of what I've described above imo. All that is doing, also imo, is making the call harder and more confusing, especially to newer officials. Maybe I'm not good enough, but I don't think that I could just freeze-frame a call and then try to decide whether there was 79, 80, 0r 81% contact. That's way too deep for me. All I do do is look at the play and say that the defender either whacked the shooter and gained an illegal advantage by doing so, or the defender made incidental contact that didn't affect the shooter enough to warrant a foul call. The bottom line is still that the call depends on your judgment. As I said, I'm a firm believer in not trying to overthink what you're doing out there.

I also personally use a "push" foul signal if I deemed that the defender committed illegal contact with his body, and the "illegal use of hand" signal if the defender whacked the shooter on an arm.

Don't know if that helps any, but as I said, I really don't think that there really is a definitive answer as to what constitutes a foul in these situations. It's a straight judgment call.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by mick

Well he can start fanning for the Duke Women now.
They just got a marvelous coach from Michigan State.

This one?


She's scary, Mick.....

And not too popular in the beautiful state of Michigan anymore either, methinks.