Referee The Defense?
 

In my association's pre-game cheat sheet there are a couple of references reminding officials to "referee the defense." It's been mentioned in clinics I've attended as well, but no one has ever really expanded on the statement and explained what is meant by it.

I have my own thoughts on its meaning, but I was wondering if some of you veterans would give me your $.02 on what "refereeing the defense" means to you.

Basically, you want to make sure the defense has obtain a legal guarding postion before any contact occurs.

It's better to think of it as finding and knowing the defense.

As officials we need to know the status of all defenders in our primary, otherwise we get surprised by contact...when that happens a lot of the time good defense gets penalized.

Ref the defense, if taken literally, can cause a tunnel-vision on the defender and that can be just as bad as not knowing if the defender has LGP.

So what does all that mean?

Well, it's simple...we need to find the defense, know the status of the ball (pivot foot, dribble), see through the play and attempt to pick up off-ball match-ups beyond the ball (screens, secondary defenders).

I apply it in all situations, but even moreso in on-ball situations. If you focus on the defender while remaining aware of the offensive player for violations, you will be better able to determine if contact is illegal, and whether the defender has legal guarding position in the case of contact.

I found that before I was taught this, I would focus on the ball handler much more often, and in those situations it's much more difficult to determine who causes contact, whether that contact is illegal, and whether legal guarding position has been obtained prior to certain types of contact.

When you run down the court and get into your position, find the defensive players and then concentrate on watching them rather than the offensive players. As a general statement, pay more attention to the defensive players than the offensive players...obviously you need to be able to see multiple players at once on screening and rebounding action, but while you have the ball in your PCA, watch the defender guarding the ball, not so much the player with the ball.

Defense...defense
 

The past few years there has been an emphasis placed on reffing the defense. The majority of officials, myself included have always tended to give the offensive player the benefit of the doubt on a close block/charge call. By referring the defense what they are saying is shift your focus off of the offensive player and look at the defense. Quite often you will suddenly find that they did get their feet planted in a legal guarding position. If you expand this same philosophy to the low post game, again you will start seeing off ball offensive pushes and holds that you were previously either not seeing, ignoring or calling a foul on the defense for.
Funny that this post was asked. I just worked a ball game with a veteran ref last Friday and his comment to me during our pre-game was" Wow, I've started to ref the defense like you guys are saying and I can't believe how much easier it is". Give it a try and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Start with rule 4-23, which tells you what a defender can legally do while guarding an opponent. Study it until you have a solid understanding of what it says. Now use that knowledge in combination with what BZ and others have already said & you're well on the way.....

What he said!!!

This is so very true - in fact, I can still remember the game (just last year for me, after I started getting serious about my officiating and visiting this forum) where it really clicked for me.

Everything about the game has been slower, easier to see, and more clear for me since. It made me an exponentially better official.

Of course, exponentially to where I was last year still left a ton of room for improvement, but you get my drift...:D

My pet peeve
 

While I am in complete agreement with the overall philosophical tone of your post, the above excerpt has me wondering. Is this situation a block if the feet aren't planted?????

Crusading for universal understanding and proper application of 4-23!!

Originally Posted by NCAAREF
Quite often you will suddenly find that they did get their feet planted in a legal guarding position.

I am hoping that NCAAREF knows that his feet doesn't have to be planted or touching the floor to "maintain" LGP.

As far as your crusade, good luck.. :D

Please Post ....
 

kblehman: Could you please post your "pregame cheat sheet". I'm always looking to improve mine.

Or that they don't even have to be "planted" to establish LGP.

"Referee the defense" means you and your partner should only make foul calls against the defense and let the coaches make the violation and foul calls against the other team's offense.

At least, that's what they think they are supposed to do. :D

I tried uploading my association's 2-man pre-game checklist (it's in PDF format) but received an error stating that the file is too big. It's 89kb and the forum pop-up windows says the limit is 100kb, so I don't understand why, but here's a link to it on the CAOA website: http://www.greatlakesreferee.com/hig...l/pregame2.pdf