Intentional vs Unsportsmanlike

[eg-italy]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

I don't think it's necessary to change, and I don't honestly think it's that big a deal. But we've certainly had discussions here on the forum about the "semantics" of the intentional foul, and we've often dealt with new officials who have been confused by the the name. I don't think it would hurt anything to change the intentional foul to an "excessive foul" or something like that.

My experience (FIBA, of course) is that the new name helped somewhat in getting the judgment correct and in cutting down complaints by coaches and fans.

There's still people (also coaches) who ask for "fallo intenzionale" instead of "antisportivo" (this is the Italian translation of unsportsmanlike). But there's people (also coaches) who don't understand the "over and back" rule which changed much more than 12 years ago to become more similar to the USA one, so I guess it's impossible that a habit vanishes completely.

Perhaps the adjective "unsportsmanlike" is not the best choice, but I think that "intentional" conveys a meaning which is not intended by the modern interpretation of the rule (Fed, NCAA or FIBA): judge the action, not the intention, as others have said. It's difficult to explain to someone, who in general doesn't agree with officials' decisions (a coach, for example ), that we ruled a contact "intentional" without guessing at the player's intention or that a deliberate common foul is not "intentional".