I had a situation in tonight's game. A player is fouled in the act of shooting. I am the lead and I make the foul call. I clearly see that the basket is no good. As I go over to report, my partner(trail) verbalizes and signals count the basket. Now, I'm wondering, "are my eyes playing tricks on me?" Since he's trail it is his call to count the bucket. I report, "count the basket, shoot 1." The folks at the table inform me that the ball didn't go in. At this point my partner changes his mind and says it didn't go in. The whole thing made us both look bad. How should I have handled this? Should I have ignored my partner and gone with what I knew was right?

Well, I would double check with him before you make the signal. You said you were sure it didn't go in, go with your instincts.

Yep, something you need to pregame is how you will handle situations where you see two different things.

If I make a bad call, I want my partner to come to me, and vice versa (but some partners aren't so open to "discussion"). Anyway, I will let them come and tell me what they saw, I will tell what I saw, and may even take a short rebuttal from my partner.

Then I change or keep my call.

But, again, you need to decide in pre-game how you and your partner will operate.

However, in pregame, you should also tell the table to stay out of judgement calls; to only give input when asked, or when they see "paperwork" or time errors.

I'm not sure there is any pre-game conference that could foresee what to do when your partner starts seeing imaginary things. Count your blessings, he could have seen aliens.

Z

This is why the non-calling official is supposed to simply say "the ball went in" quietly to his/her partner.