If anyone watched the Illinois-Arkansas game this past weekend you saw a good example of an anticipated foul call that ended up in this case costing Arkansas the game. The score was either tied or Arkansas down by one when with 5 seconds remaining in the second half one of Arkansas's guards drove the lane. One of Illinois' defenders was in the lane set up to take a charge. The Arkansas guard avoided hitting this defender, but another Illinois defender moved in, but only after the Arkansas player was already airborn. The whistle came from the lead official on the base line and was blown with the anticipated charge from the first defender. The official had to make a call and he came out with an offensive foul (charge). The basket was disallowed and Illinois won the game.
The call after watching a slow motion relay showed that the proper call was a block on the Illinois second defender who moved into position after the UA guard was already airborn. It cost Arkansas the game.
What is my point? I have always worked hard on a slower whistle to avoid this type of call. We are all guilty some time or other in making the quick, anticipated foul call. In this case it was a critical call. Let the action happen before blowing the whistle. At least that is what I attempt to do. IMHO, there could have been or should have been a double whistle on that play since the play originated from slot's primary, but the only whistle came from the lead official on the baseline.
We have all been in situations like this when it is a bam-bam play that happens so quickly. Also, we don't have the benefit of a slow motion replay and it is a judgment call. I am not being critical of the official, just a simple reminder of a lesson learned for myself to see the action happen before blowing my whistle on an anticipated foul.

Fox40,
That's good advice.
The slow whistle gives us a chance to see the play again in our minds... and that is sort of a replay.
mick

Slow Whistles are good...
 

Slow Whistles are good... But they get moans and groans from players, coaches and fans. Of course, the impression is that YOU are slow.

Last night, as the trail on the tableside (two-whistle mechanics), I had two rival schools with equal talent "doing battle" with an alternating lead occurring throughout the 2nd half.

The star center of the home team pushes the opponent while attempting to deny the inbound pass. She had her hand on the back of the opposing center and successfully deflected the pass to a teammate who quickly made an outlet pass by the time I could "reposition" my whistle and make the call.

The home team coach got very vocal about the late whistle and being influenced by the other coach. The visiting coach did have a booming voice and had barked, "That's a push!"

I calmly approached the home team coach and explained the delay was caused by MY whistle (it slipped out as I tried to blow it the first time.)

Needless to say, my inadvertant "slow whistle" was an interesting experience.

Re: Slow Whistles are good...
 

Oh, right.
Like, I believe that.

Just saw the game on ESPN
 

I just finished watching this very game replayed on ESPN this afternoon. Good game for 39 minutes and 58 seconds. Fox originally wrote that:

Quote:

The call after watching a slow motion relay showed that the proper call was a block on the Illinois second defender who moved into position after the UA guard was already airborn.

I don't necessarily agree with that. On the replay, I could see that the dribbler did make contact with the original defender. The question, I think, was which happened first, A1 running into B1, or B2 bumping A1?

But let's just assume for a second that the official was correct in calling the offensive foul. (That's not a given, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt.) Even if he was right that the foul was on the offensive player, the replay clearly (no question at all) shows that the shot left the dribbler's hand before the contact. So by NCAA rules, this should not have been a PC foul. The basket should have counted and Illinois should have been allowed to shoot 1-and-1.

Additionally, the replay clearly shows that the contact occured with 1.5 seconds left in the period. But the officials put 5.5 seconds back up on the clock after the foul was assessed. I have no idea how they came up with that.

If Bob should read this, I don't have my NCAA book handy. Is either of these 2 situations reviewable on the replay? My guess is that the first situation (was the ball released before the contact?) is NOT reviewable. But I think that they could have gone to the replay to put the correct time back on the clock.

Boy, when the Big 10 Director of Officials sits down with this crew, it's not going to be a pleasant experience.

Chuck

With the clock, I think there was a discrepancy between the game clock and what was displayed on TV. It was discussed in detail on the "other" board.

The permitted uses of the courtside monitor are:
preventing/rectifying a scoring/timing/shot clock mistake
fights
wrong player attempting a FT
FT at wrong basket
erroneously counting/cancelling a score
last-second try

The way I interpret this rule is that how much time was left at the whistle can go to the monitor; whether the shot was released cannot.

heres what happened.
after the go ahead bucket for illinois @ about 12.4 the game clock did not stop, but kept running. the inbounds pass was caught at about 7.7. that is 4.7 seconds that ran off the clock by error. the foul occured on the other end with about 1.3 on the game clock but because whistles rarely stop the clock at the perfect time it is difficult to get 100% correct. the officials were correct to adjust the game clock, maybe not the correct time to put on the clock but very close. the officials probly used the courtside monitor or the play by play to get the timing error carrected.

i also like the offensive foul on arkansas. the original defender was contacted by the offensive player, though the majority of the contact was by the secondary defender the offensive foul was emminent.

on the score no score of the bucket, this is very close. i agree that the ball has left the hand of the offensive player, but only by super duper slow mo. in real time the official made the best decision any one could, cancel the goal.

overall i think the officials did a fine job on this last second play.

Re: Just saw the game on ESPN
 

The "clock" that was shown on the TV wasn't the "official clock" -- it was a graphic from the ESPN truck (or whatever) (at least according to what I read).

That's why it didn't stop on the made basket and why it was off on the foul.

graphic vs. clock
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bob jenkins

Quote:

The "clock" that was shown on the TV wasn't the "official clock" -- it was a graphic from the ESPN truck (or whatever) (at least according to what I read).

But doesn't the graphic have to have some connection to the official clock? I mean, you can't tell me that ESPN pays some kid to start and stop the graphic in the truck. The graphic has to come from the game clock, doesn't it?

Chuck

My guess is that it is not connected to the game clock. I've seen football and hockey games where the clock doesn't stop when it's supposed to, and then gets reset - wouldn't happen if it were tied into the game clock.

Re: Just saw the game on ESPN
 

Chuck, the clock that you saw on the screen was not the actual game clock. It was an ESPN clock that they use to clone the official clock. We discussed it on McGriff.

Re: Re: Just saw the game on ESPN
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BktBallRef

Quote:

Chuck, the clock that you saw on the screen was not the actual game clock. It was an ESPN clock that they use to clone the official clock. We discussed it on McGriff.

Ok, I see the point everybody's trying to make, but my question remains. If the graphic used by ESPN is not directly tied to the game clock, how does it function? I'm sure that ESPN doesn't drag an intern to every game to start and stop the "clone" clock. The graphic has to have some connection to the game clock. Am I totally missing something obvious?

Chuck

Re: Re: Re: Just saw the game on ESPN
 

I don't know the specifics, but that would be my guess.

Interns get stuck with all the tedious work - trust me, I have several friends who intern in various places around the city (none with Gary Condit, thankfully).

i dont think so
 

so yall are saying the officials just came up with 5.5 to give arkansas a chance to foul quick and try to win? i think the clock that we all saw on t.v. is pretty accurate. it is the actual game clock graphic, kinda like the picture in picture on some t.v's. it seems illogical to bring your own clock and have someone try to start and stop it. their is a camera set up to capture the game clock and on some games the shot clock.

Re: i dont think so
 

No, that's not what we're saying. crew, I don't just make things up. Pasted below is the post from the McGriff board by a poster who saw the game.

INITIAL POST
***They need to fix that clock at the University of Illinois. Rut, maybe you can jump on them. I had taped the last part of the Illinois-Arkansas game the end of the game was a good one. Lead waves a basket off by Arkansas as the Arkansas kid charged. It was about as close a call of that kind as you could ever get and I think a frame-by frame replay shows that he was right to not count the basket.

Anyway the clock they are showing in the lower right hand corner would skip whole seconds and then add them back in and it totally skipped the last second after the charge occured. It would go from 6.3 to 5.2 to 5.1 to 5.0 then 5.9. Real goofy. They put five seconds or so back up because the clock operator forgot to shut it off during the throw in after the last basket by Illinois. I don't know if that is the clock at the fieldhouse there that they are showing in the corner of the screen but somebody needs to fix it.

REPLY

I watched this game and the announcers confused things thanks to ESPN's own technical problems. ESPN didn't show a picture of the clock in the corner, they showed a graphic with what was supposedly on the clock. Often I've seen these graphics jump around like that, like they can't change every 0.1 seconds so it looks funny. It will go from 8.0 to 7.9, but the seconds digit won't change fast enough and it'll look like 8.9 for a moment.

There was about 11 seconds left, and Illinois scored. If I'm not mistaken, the clock should've stopped until the ball was inbounded. In the graphic, it didn't. (I'm guessing on the actual clock, it did.) It was about five seconds that the graphic was clicking off seconds while the ball was dead or before it was touched by a player inbounds.

Why their graphic doesn't actually match the clock, or why they don't just have a picture of the arena clock I don't know.

So, the clock that was seen on TV was not the actual game clock. The actual clock stopped as it was supposed to and was not required to be reset.

Re: Re: i dont think so
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BktBallRef

Quote:

So, the clock that was seen on TV was not the actual game clock. The actual clock stopped as it was supposed to and was not required to be reset.

I know I'm going to seem like a jerk, but you know this . . . how?

The game clock is not shown on the TV. Ok, I can buy that.

But if we couldn't see the game clock (b/c ESPN used a graphic instead), how do we know that the game clock actually stopped?

I think if the clock on the TV had been different from the clock in the arena, the announcers would have mentioned it. They love that sort of thing.

I know I'm beating a dead horse. Sorry, but it just seems stupid to have a kid in the truck doing the clock. You'd see so many more adjustments during the course of the game. You'd have to adjust it after every basket in the last minute of the game, b/c no kid is going to start and stop the clock exactly the same as the official scorer.

Plus, if the officials are allowed to use the replay to determine if a shot was released before the end of the period, then it HAS to be exactly the same as the game clock. And that simply can't possibly happen if you have 2 different people running the clocks.

Chuck

Chuck,

PA Coach saw the game and related the story on McGriff. He said that there was nothing wrong with the clock in the United Center and no adjustment was made. ESPN simply corrected their onscreen clock. I believe that I also read that it had happened previously in the game. I don't have any reason to doubt him but I am relaying the story second hand. He saw the game, I didn't.

Tony

Hmmmm, what was a Pennsylvania coach doing in Chicago at the United Center? Get Mason on the phone.

Ok, ok, I can buy that somebody saw it in person and the clock was ok. But am I out to lunch on my last point about the graphic not being reliable for determining if a last-second shot was released on time?

Chuck

In such a case, I think the officials would be looking at the red light behind the backboard, wouldn't they? But if they were using the clock, they may want to make sure it's the inset of the actual game clock.

Going from memory (and we all know how good that is), I believe the order is horn (assuming the playback has sound), then red light, then game clock or time coding of the tape.