Delay to the nth degree

[Mark Padgett]

Usual Saturday morning kids rec league schedule. First game (at 8:15, no less) of four was 7th grade boys. Team A got a delay warning for interfering with the ball after it went through the basket about 2 minutes into the game. A minute later, they got their second call for a boundary violation. This was right after my partner reminded them not to reach over the line. All in all, they got nine, count 'em nine, delay warnings that resulted in eight technicals. Five warnings were for interfering with the ball after a made basket, four were for boundary violations. The weird thing was that they never reached over the boundary and slapped the ball.

After one of the calls in the 3rd quarter, their assistant coach yelled at my partner that we were "being ridiculous". Mind you, not that their situation was ridiculous, but that we were. My partner teed him up, so we had four free throws that time. My partner wasn't overreacting - this league has a zero tolerance policy for coaches yelling at officials.

Oh yeah - they lost by 7. Gee, I wonder what cost them the game?