Shooting into the sun

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

Had a situation earlier this year and would like to hear thoughts on it. This was an NCAA men's game. The gym where the game is being played has only one large window in it, and the window is directly behind one of the baskets. It is designated as the visitor's basket for the first half. There is a curtain, but it is not drawn, so the sun is coming through.

During warm-ups, the visiting coach gets my attention and says, "That curtain better be open for the second half, too. You better make sure that they leave it open."

His concern obviously was that his team would have difficulty shooting into the sun, and then the curtain would be closed in the second half, making it easier for the home team to see the basket.

My response was that it's simply not up to the officials. It's not a safety issue; it's more like bench location. I told him if he was concerned to let the game management know about it, but that I wasn't going to get involved.

So how would everybody else handle something like this? Should I have gone to the home coach to talk about it? Or is it better to stay out of it? Just looking for thoughts.

I hate it when coaches do silly stuff like this for an advantage. And if someone thinks that coaches don't contrive crap like this - they're wrong! I've got first hand evidence that they do!

While I agree that it is a game management issue, I would mention it to game management that my game report to the league would include, in the interest of fairness, whether or not the blinds were closed in both halves; and that he is now aware of the situation which gives him no reason to avoid closing the blinds now, rather than at half-time.

Edit: game report to mention blinds only if blinds were open one half and not the other.