The Toughest Calls in Basketball
 

I thoroughly enjoy the time I get to spend with my reffing brothers and sisters, especially when we talk about the toughest calls each of us makes and how we handle the call. I would like to hear the challenges you all have and how you handle them. For me, I regularly look back on travel calls and when to "let one go" and how technically specific I need to be, especially when reffing a jr high, frosh or JV game (where my temptation is to let all but the obvious go to enhance game flow). Also, which calls do you see refs struggling to get right?

The toughest call to make is traveling. In Jr. High, I look to see if it gave the player an advanage. Once we get to high school, I nail them. They will learn sooner or later

That's easy - it's the false double multiple non-contact personal technical foul during a dead ball with the coach out of the box and a timer's error combined with basket interference during a free throw by the non-shooting team in double overtime when the visiting team has their captain wearing a hard brace.

I mess that one up all the time. But I do get icing correct most of the time as well as a balk.

DAMN - where's those meds??? :confused:

JH level, I call them unless we're on a slick floor. They need to learn now. If we're talking 7th grade C game, I'll let some slide. I hate making them judgment calls, but you have to sometimes. Below JH, generally look for either advantage or distance; if they go more than 10 or 15 feet, I'll call it. HS (including frosh, soph, JV, etc) they all get called if I see them.

Toughest call for me right now is figuring out how much "chirping" is too much from the coach (HS only, lower than that, the answer is "zero."). It's getting easier, though.

I've been told I am way too tolerant with coaches. As a coach, and knowing how they sometimes feel during a game, I let alot go. I will fire up a T for any cursing but have never had to do it as we cover the insta-T in the pre-game. I've only given one T the last 3 years and that was to a player in rec league...nary a one in all the HS and Jr High games. My partners have ripped off quite a few, however...

Mark:

Your play is easy to call I would expect my first year students to make that call. The most difficult call I find is whether to have Italian or Chinese for dinner after the game. :D

MTD, Sr.

Had four coaches and two players last year. One JV coach just couldn't control himself after I told him I'd heard enough. One AAU coach, same thing. Another AAU coach screamed an obsenity after a no-call. Last one was an AAU assistant coach stood up and screamed his disapproval with a traveling call.

Players were easy; all JH. One dropped an F-bomb and the other performed the post-foul-call shove on the player that fouled her.

I'm getting it down with more games, and I've found that talking to them keeps the tensions down during the game so they don't get to that point as often as when I was newer.

Huh, I usually have food. ;)

Tell them to stop eating beans during halftime. :p

I think handling bench decorum is by far the thing that separates the best official from the guy who cannot stop working JH games. This part is so subjective and changes from one game to another and sometimes one quarter to another. Block/Charge are often easy, traveling is one of the most difficult calls to make as well, but nothing compares to how you handle coaches and players in very confrontational and difficult situations.

Peace

I think the toughest call to make in basketball is the right call. When you know something just happened but because you where in transistion, got straight-lined, or somebody just stepped in front of you. You can't guess, either you saw the disadvantage or you got a no-call. Sometimes a no-call is the best call. Sometimes there can be contact on the play and it's not a foul. Sometimes the player can step out of bounds, but because you didn't see it, you got no call, even if the entire gym saw it. Getting the right call is not as easy as you think.

Well, that's getting specific, isn't it...:rolleyes:

Well, it is tough to make the right call when you don't know the right rules.

Agree with that completely. It's almost impossible to make hard and fast rules on how you'd handle a certain situation without actually being there and being able to exercise your own judgment. Every coach and player is different, and so is every situation. You just do what you feel is right for that particular play at that particular time in that particular game. The officials that can adjust and defuse these situations instead of throwing gas on the fire are usually the ones that are going onward and upward.

There's a time to be a hardazz and there's also a time to turn a little bit of a blind eye. The better officials can recognize those times.

The over the back and the reach come to mind. :p

Seriously, as a coach, I struggle with preparing the kids to adapt to the way the next crew calls a game as compared to the previous crew. We know we have to, but it doesn't make it easy.

Don't you think that it's really only going to take you and your players a few minutes into a game though to find out what to expect from that day's crew?

That's been my observation over the years. Most experienced, competent coaches and their players figure out pretty quickly what they can do and not do in any particular game. Again, jmo but I think that the biggest problem isn't the crew's competency. It's whether they're consistent or not in their play calling. You can adjust to poor officiating also if they're poor consistently.

You forgot the "whatchmacallit". :o

Or "something." As in, "You've got to call something."

Yeah....sometimes that's all it takes, and admittedly, those are a tough few minutes for me.

"I did coach. I called a no-call. Didn't you hear me?" :mad:

Old School:

Let me let you in on a little secret. If you did not see it you cannot call it.

MTD, Sr.

You've hit the nail on the head JR. Consistently, whether good or bad, can be dealt with. Its the inconsistent calling that drives everyone, fans...players...coaches...and refs, crazy.

I know this is going to come across as "snotty", so please understand up front that I honestly do not mean it that way - this is a serious comment on your point above...having said that, here goes:

How about you teach your players to do things right in the first place and then you won't have to worry about how a crew calls a game? Teach them to play defense, set their screens, get rebounding position, etc, the way the rules dictate - then you won't have to worry about it during the game...and teach them to play correctly no matter what the other team or officials are doing or calling...that way there is no "preparing" for a next crew - just play the game.

Rocky, that was my first thought, too. However, I'm sure there's a variance on how much contact is allowed before a foul is called between officials. We may not always see it because the vast majority of games we see are the ones we're working. It's great to teach your kids to play defense without fouling, and to play through contact, but….

If the officials are allowing a bit more contact, and a team doesn't adjust defensively, they're putting themselves at a disadvantage by not pushing the limits of what's being allowed during that game.

And there are so many rules

I have to agree with Coach P a bit here.

Unfortunately, though, individuality in officiating is part of the game. The best players/teams learn to adapt. I remember calling an 8th grade girls' game with a partner my age who was also very used to reffing college IM games and watching NCAA D-I games. We both were on the same page and passed on a lot of minor bumps where no advantage was gained, but the coaches might be used to a foul being called. One team picked up on this and played more assertively. The other team just whined about it for the entire game. I'll let you guess which team won (and which team had a bench technical against one of its coaches).

I'm pretty sure that baseball umps have a saying to the effect of 'you might not like my strike zone, but I'm the one behind the plate today.'

It's almost enough to make your head spin, huh?

I'm not quite sure where you're going with that. Rocky is right, just teach your kids how to play the game right, period. The rest will take care of itself. Worrying about the officials style and tendencies will get you beat everytime. Worry about what the other teams does, that's who you prepare for. I think you can guarantee your team that the officials in the game will call a foul when a foul occurs, but in the event you don't hear a whistle, you don't stop playing.

I've got to give you credit, OS. That was a pretty good comment. Hey - 1 out of 887 isn't bad! :rolleyes:

Do you really think coaches teach their kids to play defense without making contact? Hardly. Good players know that not all contact is a foul, so they learn to play through contact. That said, they also know that they need to adjust their level of contact to what's being called on the court. If they play without causing any contact, they won't be taking advantage of what contact is allowed.

This is fundamental basketball, frankly.

Not in NF. Pick up a rule book and read it. There's only 10 rules.

Snaq, you just made my point for me...it IS fundamental basketball. So teach that...will there be minor variances in the way one crew calls a game from the next crew - of course. But why - as a coach - waste time trying to prepare for the way a certain crew will call the next game? That makes no sense - a coach should prepare his/her team to play the way that coach wants them to play against the next team and not worry about whether it's ref X or Y on the crew that night...

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You're scaring me again, Padgett!:) Any exciting badmitton or croquet tournaments lately? (We'll see if the meds ar working now!):)

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Adapting to how each crew will officiate is just part of the game, just as our adapting to how a team is going to play is a part. I had a tournament game once with a run and gun, shake and bake inner city team against a very set slow control offense team from a small town. We had to adjust every time up and down the court. It was tiring but it was fun. That's the game and that's what we have to do. So do players.

Funny you should mention that. I just spoke with someone who was associated with the croquet match I worked a few years ago and she said they may want to do it again next month. They're also looking at possibly putting together a grandpa-grandson basketball game.

FYI - these events are sponsored by a local Lions Club in a retirement community right next to my city (King City, OR). All the proceeds from these events go to the Lions Club camp for blind kids. I offer to volunteer whenever they have something like this going on. It's a lot of fun and a great cause. BTW - if they get the basketball game scheduled, I'll be looking for a partner....hint, hint.

For me personally, the toughest call is granting a time out. I've been bitten a couple times in my career on this one. Last year, in a close varsty girls game, I'm bringing the ball up as T with a 1 on 1 match up in front of me. I think I hear "time out" from the bench. When I finally have a point where I can look at the coach, he's just standing there. I ask if he wants a time out, he says yes, and as I'm getting the whistle back in my mouth, we have a steal going the other way. Next time down he got his time out, but needed part of it to have a discussion with me. It was his own fault for not being more visible or llouder so my partners could pick it up, but it was still a not great situation.

Though I don't always remember to do this. I try to tell the coaches to give me the TO signal or 30 - Full when I look at you in the pregame. In a close game you got to keep yelling it and calling it. If I'm sure the coach called a TO and when i checked, he/she confirmed it. I go back to where the ball was when the coach asked for the TO.

A side note to this is at a recent game. I had a coach turn around and kick his chair after the opposition scored a 3 point goal. I immediately bang him with a T, giving the T signal. Opposition coach thought I called a TO and his players rushed the court to congradulate their teammate. I'm trail 2 person and report the T to the table. I go to ask the opposition coach who going to shoot the T and his entire bench is at half-court. I ask the coach, did you call a TO? He said no, you did. No, I called a Technical foul. Coach: but you gave the timeout signal. Okay, I'm going to give your bench a technical foul for being on the court. So what turned out to be a potential 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 point swing in their favor. I made it a double technical, we don't shoot, POI, both coaches seat belted. Man was that coach mad....

This is why coaches ought to teach their kids to mirror TO signals.