A1 is fouled as he shoots a layup. B1 ends up on the floor. A little pushing and shoving goes on. Hard to believe, but no official sees A1 kick B1....intentionally. What is seen is B1's retaliation....Throwing an errant punch at A1 as B1 attempts to get up.
Q: As an official, do you go by the book and assess B1 a Flagrant "T" for fighting, even though you know in your mind that B1's actions were a retaliation for something you did not see??

The player in this case was tossed. But as I think about it, I wonder if this was the right thing to do from a game management standpoint. I do not believe there is a right or wrong answer, just curious as to your opinions.

A. you are not a mind reader
B. you do not have a time machine or a replay machine
C. you can only call what you see
D. you cannot see everything
E. regardless of the reason for the punch, you must eject
F. who cares, it's only a game anyway ;)

If you want to view this as a learning experience, ask yourself if you and your partner used proper positioning and mechanics during the entire sequence. If you did not, and that contributed to not seeing the alleged first incident, then discuss it and figure out how not to do that in the future. However, if you did nothing wrong in that respect, then that's just the nature of a game that has 10 players spread out over the court and only 2 (in your case) officials who are expected to have wide-range vision.

BTW....This is the hard part to believe....This was a 3 person crew!!!
I was at "C" on the opposite side from the action, and was the only one who saw anything.

That's exactly who is supposed to see the action on this type of play.

I assume you went to your partners and had both A1 and B1 ejected.

mlan - you say that "no official" saw A1 kick B1 - do you include yourself as C in this statement? If so, how do you know it occurred?

If you did see it, I agree with Bob - both of them go. If not, I don't have a clue how you can know it happened and take any action against A1.

This is one of those things that you know happened even though you did not see it, and was verified after the game by a friend in the stands.
I realize that we often call fouls, only catching the retaliation, but in this case I wonder if the ejection was excesive. There was an attempt by B1 to hit A1, but no contact was made....and that was it. No more swings and the players seperated.
Again, by book it was the correct call, but from a game management perspective, maybe in this case the ejection was excessive......Just a hindsight opinion.

Can't call what you can't see. A1 screwed up and got lucky. B1 screwed up and got caught.

Z

Mlancast, Mark is right on concerning the point. If you saw an errant punch, then the player is gone. You can't help what you didn't see. This is a non basketball play and you have to take care of business.

If you think that A1 caused the problem (read: Has he been a punk all game?), then I would toss them both and be done with it.

"Get rid of the disruptors."