FBI investigating NBA ref

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

But this is not the reason for your previous statement. The reason NCAA officials have more bad no-calls is that they're trained that way. If you don't KNOW, don't blow. It's not because they're not held accountable, it's because they taught that their bad calls should be no-calls. When you don't blow the whistle, the game goes on. But when you blow the whistle and you're wrong, the whole game stops, everybody looks at you and you give everybody a chance to chirp at you. You might not agree with that philosophy, but that's what's taught. Of course, they want to get it right every time, but we all know that's impossible. So if you're going to make mistakes, it's better (in the NCAA's thinking) to keep the game moving.

I think you will find that this is changing. I agree that it was often taught to not blow your whistle on flops or many blocked shots to the basket. That is kind of changing at least at the camps I have recently attended. It seems like they want the whistle blown when bodies are hitting the floor. One of the major problems with trying to compare all D1 with the NBA is the fact that there are fewer NBA officials. D1 has probably a little over a 1000 referees that work a D1 game (that number might be high, but work with for a second ). Each conference has a different supervisor for the most part and what one conference might expect is not the same in another conference. Remember many of the newer officials at the NBA level have never worked games equivalent to the NBA before they were hired. I will agree that many of the officials in the NBA are very, very good, but I would suggest that many are not fully ready from a standpoint of just plain experience and making enough mistakes. Even though I did not agree with everything Mathis said about the NBA officials, but some of what he said had merit.

Peace

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

One of the major problems with trying to compare all D1 with the NBA is the fact that there are fewer NBA officials. D1 has probably a little over a 1000 referees that work a D1 game (that number might be high, but work with for a second ). Each conference has a different supervisor for the most part and what one conference might expect is not the same in another conference.

Agree with that. And to expand on it, the officials within a conference are different also. Different personalities; different ideas on officiating; different tolerance levels, different ideas sometimes on how much contact to allow, etc. Jmo but I don't think that you're ever going to be able to regiment your training/evaluation down to where everything can be called exactly the same. I think that it's more reasonable to ask if any particular game was called fairly and evenly and kept under control while doing so. More often than not, the players/teams decide what kind of game that we're going to have, and we just follow along doing the best that we can.

Again, jmo but I think that NBA officiating is entertainment based, and that's why it's hard to compare the over-all effectiveness of their officiating staff with that of a top NCAA D1 conference. They're two different animals, with different rules and different goals. And that doesn't really make one set of officials markedly better than the other. I do wonder sometimes if the NBA expects too much from their officials.

Jmo, based on my impressions and not that much actual knowledge of the current NBA training/evaluation program......

[Jurassic Referee]

Interesting article this morning citing other NBA referees....

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baske...e-fixing_N.htm

They don't seem to be happy with the current NBA system, which was my impression from afar also. One interesting quote was the one about NBA guidelines directing officials to make calls all over the court.

Here's another one......
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baske...-reviews_N.htm.
Many observers are high school and college referees. Hmmmmmm.....

[gsf23]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Interesting article this morning citing other NBA referees....

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baske...e-fixing_N.htm

They don't seem to be happy with the current NBA system, which was my impression from afar also. One interesting quote was the one about NBA guidelines directing officials to make calls all over the court.

They are all just bitter.

[Old School]

Originally Posted by gsf23

They are all just bitter.

They all can't be bitter, but very few seem to have positive things to say. The idea of calling all over the court is being mis-represented. The NBA, which I agree, has a philosophy that each official has a different angle of the play and that when a foul occurs, the best angle to see the foul could be the off-official (non-prmiary area official) because the play/foul turned right into their clear-line-of-sight vision provided their in proper NBA court position. I saw a WNBA game yesterday, where the C had a great call, where the post player swung away from the lead, and the contact occured in the C's line of vision but out of their NCAA primary coverage area. You may not agree with it, but it's how 3-person officiating should be, imho. It's not perfect, but it's better than not allowing an official that would have had the best angle to see the play to not call it (or even look in that area) because it is out of their primary coverage area.

One arguement that NCAA/HS coaches have is that officials in their leagues can't make a call outside of their PCA area even though they may have saw the violation.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

D1 has probably a little over a 1000 referees that work a D1 game (that number might be high, but work with for a second ).

Your estimate is pretty good. For documented support, Referee Magazine put the figure at approximately 900 for NCAA D1 Womens officials on page 61 of its July 2007 issue.

[Scrapper1]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

It seems like they want the whistle blown when bodies are hitting the floor.

Very good point. I was talking in general terms, but you're exactly right about this particular type of play. Lots of observers will say, when bodies get tangled and go down, we have to have a whistle. I don't always agree with that, but that is one play that many people would rather have a marginal whistle than a marginal no-call.

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

Very good point. I was talking in general terms, but you're exactly right about this particular type of play. Lots of observers will say, when bodies get tangled and go down, we have to have a whistle. I don't always agree with that, but that is one play that many people would rather have a marginal whistle than a marginal no-call.

Had a play where two players are going for an airborne ball. They both jumped in the air to get it and they hit each other, both crashing to the ground. Neither one ended up with the ball and both sides were yelling for a foul.

Coach is in my ear and I said to him, "what did the other player do that was illegal?" Coach shut up after hearing that. Not all train wrecks are fouls, but I think greater than half are.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

Had a play where two players are going for an airborne ball. They both jumped in the air to get it and they hit each other, both crashing to the ground. Neither one ended up with the ball and both sides were yelling for a foul.

Coach is in my ear and I said to him, "what did the other player do that was illegal?" Coach shut up after hearing that. Not all train wrecks are fouls, but I think greater than half are.

I think that Scrappy is talking about where there is a train wreck in a block/charge situation. Iow, the offensive player has the ball. That is a situation where a lot of evaluators like to see a call of some kind.

Two players going after a loose ball and colliding is a whole different kinda train wreck.

[Old School]

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

Had a play where two players are going for an airborne ball. They both jumped in the air to get it and they hit each other, both crashing to the ground. Neither one ended up with the ball and both sides were yelling for a foul.

Coach is in my ear and I said to him, "what did the other player do that was illegal?" Coach shut up after hearing that. Not all train wrecks are fouls, but I think greater than half are.

This is the one exception. Any other time where you have a big collision, we need to have a whistle.