Intentional Lane Violations --- Good coaching?

[sj]

I had one I'd never run across as well the other night. Team A is down by 4 with 4 seconds left and has the ball OB at the far end after a made free throw. Coach A calls their last time out. Coming out A inbounds it, comes up the court, and a kid hits a three with right at 1 second left. I'm trail and as the ball goes in Coach A turns at me and starts screaming. I knew he had no timeouts so I wasn't going to give him one but he was so adamant that I had to turn and look at him wondering what he is going nuts over. He was screaming at me to call a foul. He had told his kids that if they make a shot to foul immediately. Obviously this would have been prior to the ball being taken OB for a throw in. His kids were pushing every B kid in sight. I called nothing and the horn blew and we left. But he screamed at us as we went. The best case for this numskull would have been an intentional foul, go to the other end, shoot 2 and then give B the ball....all with under a second left. I passed.

[Back In The Saddle]

That would be an intentional T, right?

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by sj

I had one I'd never run across as well the other night. Team A is down by 4 with 4 seconds left and has the ball OB at the far end after a made free throw. Coach A calls their last time out. Coming out A inbounds it, comes up the court, and a kid hits a three with right at 1 second left. I'm trail and as the ball goes in Coach A turns at me and starts screaming. I knew he had no timeouts so I wasn't going to give him one but he was so adamant that I had to turn and look at him wondering what he is going nuts over. He was screaming at me to call a foul. He had told his kids that if they make a shot to foul immediately. Obviously this would have been prior to the ball being taken OB for a throw in. His kids were pushing every B kid in sight. I called nothing and the horn blew and we left. But he screamed at us as we went. The best case for this numskull would have been an intentional foul, go to the other end, shoot 2 and then give B the ball....all with under a second left. I passed.

Best scenario I can think of for calling the false multiple!!

[ma_ref]

Originally Posted by sj

His kids were pushing every B kid in sight. I called nothing and the horn blew and we left. But he screamed at us as we went. The best case for this numskull would have been an intentional foul, go to the other end, shoot 2 and then give B the ball....all with under a second left. I passed.

Strategy or no, call the intentional foul. It's situations like this where kids really get hurt, and parents/coaches of the team being fouled get mad at you for allowing it. And they'd be right.

[Mark Dexter]

Originally Posted by ma_ref

Strategy or no, call the intentional foul. It's situations like this where kids really get hurt, and parents/coaches of the team being fouled get mad at you for allowing it. And they'd be right.

As BITS said, this needs to be an intentional technical foul for dead-ball contact. (I suppose it could also be a flagrant T.)

[sj]

I can see eveybody's points. One thing I'll expand on a bit is that the time remaining was such that if I had blown a whistle the horn would have been blowing at the same time as I was still blowing and the clock would certainly have gone to zero.

So is there a different dynamic if there are 3 or so seconds left versus one second when the ball goes in?.....Ball goes in...coach turns and screams ( and I do mean screams to call a foul and wasn't asking for time out.)...I turn to look....I'm seeing a push (about a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10) in my peripheral vision but honestly got distracted by the coach screaming,,,horn blows. The whole episode I'm describing takes place in about one second. Certainly no more.

As for creating an atmosphere where it's allowing for the potential for very bad things to happen. I guess my contention is that there wasn't enough time left for bad things to happen. But if there is enough time remaining then no doubt it's a good point.

Please don't take any of this as being stubborn or argumentative, I'm trying to learn and figure it out. Thanks.

[amckell]

sj --

At last week's association meeting, we discussed the issue of granting/not-granting timeouts, when you know a team has none left (game management vs. game manipulation). Basically, if you are 100% sure the team is calling a timeout, you grant it, whether or not you're aware of how many they have left. In this case, you grant the timeout and give the T. It's between the coach and his book, as to how many timeouts are available - not the officials' responsibility. Refer to Chris Webber's infamous timeout call in the national championship years ago.

As far as not calling anything at the end of the game, if I knew a team was going to foul (albeit intentionally), I would call something, even if it was minor - seems to be the widely accepted practice, even at the collegiate level. More importantly, it's a safety issue.

My $.02.

[Texas Aggie]

It's situations like this where kids really get hurt, and parents/coaches of the team being fouled get mad at you for allowing it. And they'd be right.

That's NOT the reason to call it (and no, they wouldn't be right). The reason to call it is because that's what the rules are. Don't get into this idiotic mindset where we have any control over whether players are injured. We don't. In this situation, the behavior that might lead to injury is already going on, so a whistle isn't going to heal an injury. Further, calling it isn't going to prevent it in the future if that's the strategy their coach feels is in their best interest, so later, we are back to the same issue, called or uncalled. The proper thing to do is to call it because the rules say to call it, not because we care about what anyone thinks.

[jdw3018]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

That's NOT the reason to call it (and no, they wouldn't be right). The reason to call it is because that's what the rules are. Don't get into this idiotic mindset where we have any control over whether players are injured. We don't. In this situation, the behavior that might lead to injury is already going on, so a whistle isn't going to heal an injury. Further, calling it isn't going to prevent it in the future if that's the strategy their coach feels is in their best interest, so later, we are back to the same issue, called or uncalled. The proper thing to do is to call it because the rules say to call it, not because we care about what anyone thinks.

The only way I agree with the injury perspective is if you don't call contact that is a foul initially, it only encourages the players to escalate the contact to a level where the official will call it. I'm not advocating calling a foul where there isn't one, and I'm not even one who advocates calling a foul just because there is contact when they are trying to foul. But, if you have contact that legitimately a foul with 3 seconds left in the game, and you let it go to try to run the clock out, you're inaction forces the fouling team to escalate their contact to attempt to draw the call.

[Rich]

I know this is contrary to some opinions here, but when I know they want to foul and everyone else does too, any attempt that involves contact will get a quick whistle from me. I do not want players wondering "How much do I have to whack him to get a whistle?"

[ma_ref]

Originally Posted by jdw3018

you're inaction forces the fouling team to escalate their contact to attempt to draw the call.

Originally Posted by RichMSN

I do not want players wondering "How much do I have to whack him to get a whistle?"

My points exactly.

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

That's NOT the reason to call it (and no, they wouldn't be right). The reason to call it is because that's what the rules are. Don't get into this idiotic mindset where we have any control over whether players are injured. We don't. In this situation, the behavior that might lead to injury is already going on, so a whistle isn't going to heal an injury. Further, calling it isn't going to prevent it in the future if that's the strategy their coach feels is in their best interest, so later, we are back to the same issue, called or uncalled. The proper thing to do is to call it because the rules say to call it, not because we care about what anyone thinks.

I agree that's not the reason to call it. You never call a foul because you *expect* an injury to occur, nor are we directly responsible for the actions of the players on the court. My point was that once this person decided not to call it, they have, in fact, potentially put a team in harms way and it was totally avoidable. Imagine what the players on the team trying to foul are thinking: "Hmmm...I just tried to foul the kid, but the ref didn't call anything...maybe I didn't get him enough?" So next time they try to foul again, only this time they do it harder because it didn't get the ref's attention the 1st time. I'm no lawyer, but negligence is not something I'm willing to spend a small fortune to defend myself against. And in today's litigious society, don't think this wouldn't happen.

True, that the "whistle isn't going to heal an injury", but it could very well prevent one. And by consciously ignoring an intentional foul situation, this particular official is creating an atmosphere where they're allowing the potential for very bad things to happen.

[Rizzo21]

Originally Posted by ma_ref

My points exactly.


I agree that's not the reason to call it. You never call a foul because you *expect* an injury to occur, nor are we directly responsible for the actions of the players on the court. My point was that once this person decided not to call it, they have, in fact, potentially put a team in harms way and it was totally avoidable. Imagine what the players on the team trying to foul are thinking: "Hmmm...I just tried to foul the kid, but the ref didn't call anything...maybe I didn't get him enough?" So next time they try to foul again, only this time they do it harder because it didn't get the ref's attention the 1st time. I'm no lawyer, but negligence is not something I'm willing to spend a small fortune to defend myself against. And in today's litigious society, don't think this wouldn't happen.

True, that the "whistle isn't going to heal an injury", but it could very well prevent one. And by consciously ignoring an intentional foul situation, this particular official is creating an atmosphere where they're allowing the potential for very bad things to happen.

Had this scenario earlier this year when Team A was up by about 5 with less than a minute to go and did a VERY good job of "keep away" with their passes. Team B could not catch any of the players for their "foul". Finally A1 caught the ball and just stood there but B1 came in and shoved him into the stands with 1.4 seconds left. Bad scene that luckily didn't escalate (fortunately, A1 was very calm and not hurt). The call was Flagrant Personal on B1 by one of my partners. He's out for the remaining 1.4 seconds and the next game as well. Post-game we lamented the fact that we couldn't get a touch foul earlier but there was NOTHING to get. Things just happen.

[A Pennsylvania Coach]

Originally Posted by sj

I had one I'd never run across as well the other night. Team A is down by 4 with 4 seconds left and has the ball OB at the far end after a made free throw. Coach A calls their last time out. Coming out A inbounds it, comes up the court, and a kid hits a three with right at 1 second left. I'm trail and as the ball goes in Coach A turns at me and starts screaming. I knew he had no timeouts so I wasn't going to give him one but he was so adamant that I had to turn and look at him wondering what he is going nuts over. He was screaming at me to call a foul. He had told his kids that if they make a shot to foul immediately. Obviously this would have been prior to the ball being taken OB for a throw in. His kids were pushing every B kid in sight. I called nothing and the horn blew and we left. But he screamed at us as we went. The best case for this numskull would have been an intentional foul, go to the other end, shoot 2 and then give B the ball....all with under a second left. I passed.

Why'd A use their last timeout before the 3? He should've saved it for after the 3 went in.

[sj]

Originally Posted by A Pennsylvania Coach

Why'd A use their last timeout before the 3? He should've saved it for after the 3 went in.

Your guess is as good as mine but maybe he had this in mind. That being the idea of fouling during the dead ball as his only shot at winning and wanted to set it up. I just had never run across it before.