Trifecta
Men’s juco game Sat afternoon…about 5 mins in, A1 goes coast to coast and in for the layup against B1, B1 goes down, L passes on any call right in front of him, ball goes in. A1 stands over B1 and points down at him screaming, then slaps his own chest. L freezes, but from C I see it, this is an easy one so I come in and get the tech on A1. I stopped for a second to explain to A’s coach what happened and he made a comment like “if your partner had called that obvious block, my guy wouldn’t have acted like an idiot” which I thought was a little funny..A1 even apologized to me later, which was not necessary, but a nice gesture... Later on in the first half, this time B1 is going coast to coast and goes up against A1 for a shot and my partner who is L in this case (same partner as in first case) comes out with a PC foul and waves off the basket. I was C table side so as I turn around I can see that the B coach is livid, and he is going to come walking out, so before he gets a chance I walk toward him to cut him off. He starts going off, “how is that not a block, no way that is a charge”, etc, we’re ok to this point, I just said “coach my partner had the best look at the play”, etc…I basically had the same look at it that the coach did and it was a tough call (my partner later said he wished he could have it back, would have had a block). So the coach goes off a little then “that was a horse(poop) call!”, loud enough for all to hear….WHACK, there’s #2 for me in the first half, both times basically protecting my partner. So we are now in the second half, I am T in the FC and there is a steal at the division line and a quick break with A1 & B1 only…A1 goes up for the layup, lays it off the board and as it is on the board, B1 smacks the backboard….ball goes in. I blow tech #3 for the game. Again B coach can’t believe it, so I go to report, then stop and explain to him what happened….he and A1 both claim that he was going for a block, he had never seen anything like this in college basketball, it should have been a goaltend if he smacked the backboard (wrong), etc, etc, just really flabbergasted….but it was clear to me that A1 was nowhere near the ball, in my judgement he intentionally slapped it after the ball was well out of his reach…I do regret that I spent a little more time than I should have talking to the coach, I should have given a brief explanation and gotten the hell out of there…rest of the game went without much of a hitch, but a good, close game.
This is my issue…this was only my third regular season juco game…incidentally my one partner who was L in the first two instances above, he is an experienced HS official, but it was his first juco game, so I think he was a little more tentative in a few cases than he normally would have been. As it turns out I end up with three techs in one game when I hadn’t had any in the first two…not necessarily anything wrong with that, the first two techs were really easy, obvious ones to get, but I am torn about the last one. So to you guys with more college experience out there, would you have passed on the third one? In hindsight I’m not so sure. I do think by rule it was a good tech, and it is indirect so no tf count, doesn’t go against 1/5 to DQ on the player, so we administered it correctly. Just the fact that personally it was my third of the game I think got me wondering if I was a little too zealous…how often have you guys seen this called in the college game? I know it is a call that really should be made by T/C, however, in this case on the quick break they weren’t in any position to make it I didn’t think, and passing on it b/c it was not technically “my call” would have been a cop out IMO….thoughts anyone?
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