Great games tonight for me
 

Man, I had a great night and just wanted to share. Some of you know I've moved to a new state, so to some extent have been starting over after getting about a half-varsity schedule in my old state last year.

Well, I've been working hard and have had about 20 JV and MS games already, and today it worked out and I got called to fill in a B/G V double-header. Two small schools that are passionate about their basketball and have some darn good players.

It was the best game of the season for me, the crew was good and we were in rythym the entire night. Both games came down to the final minute. Handed out one T for a girl talking trash at another after scoring on her, warned a head coach for her assistant making noise, and tossed one fan for language right on the sideline. (BTW, I didn't do all of these...one of us did each). In spite of that it was a blast, the crowd was rocking, the players played hard and, in the boys game, above the rim.

After, only two plays had me thinking. One was an OOB I think I blew - one of those that I called instinctually, then after inbounding I kept replaying thinking it was probably the wrong call. The other was an intentional foul call at the end of the boys game. A semi-breakaway for the team up 3 with about 30 seconds left, and I called a solid hack by the defender, who then followed up by reaching around the back and grabbing the offensive player. I came up w/ an IF call based on the grab, but wonder if a simple common foul would have sufficed based on the initial contact.

Any comments on the IF situation are welcome, and thanks for letting me share! :D

What did your partners say?

My theory when there are two fouls in a row (by the same player against the same opponent) is that if they are close enough together that I don't have time to squeeze the whistle inbetween, go with whatever's the worst. So I would agree with your call.

When you called the solid hack, this caused the ball to become dead. Contact during a dead ball shall be ignored unless it is intentional or flagrant, and then if you judge that the contact warrants a call it will be a technical foul, not a personal. Common foul sounds like the call here to me.

I'm trying to picture what happened here..b/c if you still have the airborne shooter then the ball wouldn't be dead.....

That's not true. The ball can be dead while there's still an airborne shooter.

OP didn't mention a shot.

I appreciate the thoughts. I'll try to clarify for better discussion...there was no shot involved. It was a transition play with a steal and a pass back to A1, who was fouled by B1.

I'll try to describe as distinctly as possible. The pass was up-court to A1. B1 was in front of, but moving the opposite direction of A1, so as A1 caught the ball headed toward his goal it was obvious B1 was beat. He reached out and down with his left arm and grabbed across both arms of A1 (this is where I registered a foul in my brain), and a continued motion as A1 continued past him, B1 reached around with his right arm and grabbed B1 around the waist from behind. The grabbing happened simultaneously with my whistle (which doesn't matter, but gives you a timeframe for the entire play).

It was a situation I've played over many times since last night. I reacted to the grab by calling an intentional, though I'm now leaning toward the thought that I should have gone with a simple common foul, ruling that the grab happened after the ball was dead...

True but the situation I pictured was one where the shooter goes up, gets "hacked", as OP called it then as he is coming to the floor there is more of a "grab" or something that was considered intentional....in that situation, the ball would not be dead on the first "hack".....turns out I didn't picture the situation correctly....