When Striped Shirts are Needed
 

I watched a couple of games this weekend at NY's IS8 tournament. This tournament features mostly seniors or prep shool players who are off to D1 schools in the fall, so the level of basketball is usually good. It is sponsored by Nike, and the teams are given uniforms as part of their entry fee. This year the officials were given IS8 officiating uniforms, consisting of black knee length shorts and light grey shirts with a single black panel on each side, under the arm, rather than the usual striped shirts worn in NYC basketball.

Whether it was the poor lighting of the gym or the unfamiliar uniforms the players wore I don't know, but on four occasions during two games, I noticed the players on the white team trying to pass to one of the officials. This usually happened when the player was under pressure defense, and saw the official out of the corner of his eye. Two passes out of bounds and a backcourt violation resulted, with one pass actually recovered by the passing team.

Anyone else ever seen this? Is this something unique to these particular officials' uniforms? They were made by Nike, so I don't know if they were a standard color or perhaps a little lighter.

In Canada, we used to wear greys. I would have one of those each year. Sometimes the passing team would recover the ball without violation.

Now that I can wear stripes, I have not had this happen in 3 years.

Things that make you go hmmm....

There was a a reason that stripes were selected to begin with....so that they wouldn't be confused with either teams' colors.