Good officiating?

[tomegun]

Originally Posted by biz

As a coach, I'm looking for two things from the officials....a strong knowledge of the rules (unfortunately, brother and sister officials, this one is lacking far too often) and Consistency.

I understand, as an official, that there are many shades of gray in officiating basketball, and all I try for as an official is to be consistent from the tip to the final horn and that's all I ask for from the officials who call the games I coach in.

I hear you loud and clear concerning consistency, but there is something you and all other coaches should realize. Stop worrying about the foul count 3 minutes into the game! If a coach feels like the fouls were lopsided at least wait until nature can take its course. There have been so many times when play has dictated a cluster of fouls for one team and a cluster for the other team later on. The end result is fouls that aren't even but reflect the defensive play of both teams. This should be our goal anyway: a foul count in line with how the teams played defense. Getting uptight about the foul count in the first 4 minutes is dumb.

[budjones05]

If you want to know how you did, just ask the coach that just won.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by tomegun

I hear you loud and clear concerning consistency, but there is something you and all other coaches should realize. Stop worrying about the foul count 3 minutes into the game! If a coach feels like the fouls were lopsided at least wait until nature can take its course. There have been so many times when play has dictated a cluster of fouls for one team and a cluster for the other team later on. The end result is fouls that aren't even but reflect the defensive play of both teams. This should be our goal anyway: a foul count in line with how the teams played defense. Getting uptight about the foul count in the first 4 minutes is dumb.

I would take that a step further. Many officials do not care what coaches think about foul counts at any time of the game. I mainly concern myself with foul counts to know if we are close to a bonus situation. Outside of that if a coach complains, it is not going to change anything. Actually, most complaining coaches engage in means little or nothing but takes away their credibility.

[jdw3018]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I would take that a step further. Many officials do not care what coaches think about foul counts at any time of the game. I mainly concern myself with foul counts to know if we are close to a bonus situation. Outside of that if a coach complains, it is not going to change anything. Actually, most complaining coaches engage in means little or nothing but takes away their credibility.

Complaining about the foul count is about as sure a way as any to get me to tune a coach out. It's a "crying wolf" scenario. Same as the coach who never really says anything across the line, but always wants a travel, or 3 seconds, or "watch the handchecking" every other trip down the court. It eliminates that coach's ability to get my attention to question something legitimately.

I had a freshman level game a couple weeks ago where I was trail for free throws and the coach wanted to complain because his team had 3 fouls and the other team had none 2:30 into the game. I just leaned over and said, "Coach, I'll be happy to talk to you about legitimate questions or rules applications when I can, but if you want to talk about the foul count I'm pretty good at tuning that out and it's hard to get my attention back."

It worked in that game. I normally wouldn't have said anything, but it got that coach focused on the game, and he had just 2 or 3 "complaints" the rest of the night, all of which came with pretty good questions we could answer.

[Junker]

This is an interesting topic. It is good to hear things from a coach's perspective. I fall into the category of officials that doesn't really put much stock into comments from coaches. If they say, "nice job" I say "thank you." I'm more concerned with the other officials I work with and the assignors I work for thinking I do a quality job.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I mainly concern myself with foul counts to know if we are close to a bonus situation.

Good point. New officials, please take note. This allows the officials to be extra careful about correctly identifying the shooter. It also helps avoid the dreadful: "Blue ball". Blue throws in. Horn sounds. Table makes a one and one sign. We look like idiots. Good way to prevent many correctable errors.

[biz]

Originally Posted by tomegun

I hear you loud and clear concerning consistency, but there is something you and all other coaches should realize. Stop worrying about the foul count 3 minutes into the game! If a coach feels like the fouls were lopsided at least wait until nature can take its course. There have been so many times when play has dictated a cluster of fouls for one team and a cluster for the other team later on. The end result is fouls that aren't even but reflect the defensive play of both teams. This should be our goal anyway: a foul count in line with how the teams played defense. Getting uptight about the foul count in the first 4 minutes is dumb.

I'm not ever worried about foul count. Foul count is a direct representation of style of play...For example if one team is playing a man-to-man full court trapping game while the other team is playing a passive 2-3 zone, then the team pressing is probably going to commit far more fouls. My experience is that foul counts are almost always representative of the type of game. If the game is tight foul count is usually close, and if it isn't, it never is the fault of the game officials.

What I'm talking about with consistency is if you start the game calling hand-checking closely then you better continue to call the same type of hand-checks throughout the game. If you start the game by letting a lot of contact go then don't come up with a touch foul late.

The players will adjust to the way the game is being called, so therefore it is vital (and I'm saying this as a coach and an official) that the officials call apply the rules in a consistent manner.