Everytime a school/coach complains about the officials just mention that while there are some great officials who will do it for token amounts of money it is hard to keep a full roster of the best when they can make more money doing something else without all the hassles. If they want better, they've got to pay better. The average official is not going to take 2-4 days off work without pay and also pay $200-$500 for camp fees when they only gross $1000-2000/year form HS games.

I would much rather work a game with 3 quality officials. However, there's no measure to whether crew of 3 will provide a better game.... matter of fact, no one here can define what "better" is.

I've had coaches and players tell me they rather coach/play in a game with two officials only. Crew of three tends to call too many fouls/violations.

Just because there are more foul and/or violation calls, it doesn't mean the game is "better."

Done generally right, it does mean the accuracy of the calls will improve and the call selection improves. It doesn't mean there are more foul calls. Even if they are, it will generally lead to a cleaner and better flowing game.

In 10-15 minutes, you can teach a good, intelligent 2-person official a poor-man's version of 3-person and you'll instantly have better coverage simply due to the smaller areas of responsibility and better angles. You do it with no live-ball rotations and only basic primary areas. They may not be the smoothest with dead ball switches and rotations but just about anything they do will work and the only people that will even know the difference would be other officials. This doesn't give you all of what 3-person has to offer but it gets you most of it.

Even full 3-person is just not THAT complicated....it is simply an elitist attitude to claim so. I think that most officials can pick it up in just a few games if they are working with partners who already know it. So, the quality you get is largely a matter of how you phase it in.

Now, if you were to look at the other angle...who that 3rd person would be, you might have a different point. Assuming your top 100 officials were working your top 50 games on any given night, you now need 150 officials to cover the same number of games. You'll have officials getting games they otherwise wouldn't be getting.

Assuming that 2 of the 3 are the same two that would have been on the game already, those two will not drop in quality with the addition of a third. The third might be a little softer but in the long run it would far better to bring in a greener official with two vets in a crew of three than with one vet in a crew of two. You'll also have younger officials getting opportunities sooner and also get veteran officials that can keep up a little longer.

3-person is generally a plus in nearly every area....but no one should let the schools get away without paying for it.

well said...but there aren't too many " intelligent 2-person official " out there that don't know 3-person. T

Yeah, I've heard that crap from a couple coaches too. The ones who never met an off-ball foul they liked because they always watch the ball and don't teach their players how to get open without an illegal screen. :)

The fact is that three person, worked properly, puts officials in better positions to see plays and also allows officials to see the entire play rather than just the end of it. I don't know how you could argue that not to be better. :confused:

Except in a few remote areas, no HS games in Oregon are worked by 3. That means that few-to-none of the HS-only refs (and there are some good ones) have ever had an opportunity or a need to work 3. I'm sure Oregon is not alone in this regard.

I had a coach this year that complained that we called about 5 illegal screens and the coach complained that I should not have called that many because of what happen all year. Now for the record these where the worst screens I have seen all season. All of them had elbows high and looked more like football blocks than basketball screening principles.

I concur.

Peace

You tackled the point: if these are competent officials that work properly, then Yes. The extra set of eyes will increase the chances of calling the play correctly. However, in my original post I said just because there are three stripes on the court, that doesn't mean the game will officiate better (given if the three zebras aren't competent of three-person officiating).

I'm not arguing two person officiating is better than three. But I would much rather work a two person game if I can trust one of my partners versus working a three-person game if I can't trust one or both of them. JMO!

I think in your second option, if the third official is a decent 2 person official, they can adjust. Personally, this is a no-brainer and I don't understand why there would be any debate.

I'm sorry, but this is just crap.

2 vs 3
 

3 any day, here in washington we went 3-man 3 years ago, IMO this was the first year that there was a noticable improvement of officiating as 3-man crews, when switching from 2 to 3-man crews there will be a learning curve but once that happens you will never want to do 2-man crews again, in the summer we use 3-man to help some of our less experienced people, this seems to help our local people the most....