Making Calls out of your primary.

[Adam]

[sarcasm]Gosh, you mean there was a crash and a veteran crew (with apparently a good reputation) passed on it? Gee, and I thought everytime a player hit the floor we were supposed to have a whistle.[/sarcasm]

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

[sarcasm]Gosh, you mean there was a crash and a veteran crew (with apparently a good reputation) passed on it? Gee, and I thought everytime a player hit the floor we were supposed to have a whistle.[/sarcasm]

LOL!!!

Peace

[btaylor64]

Originally Posted by doubleringer

Jeff, I understand where you're coming from and wanting to get the call right, that is what all of us want. What I like to think about is why we have primary coverage areas. We have primary coverage areas because those are the parts of the floor we can see and get good angles with. When you go out of your primary you probably don't have the best look at the whole play. At camps this summer I've heard statistics that when we go across the lane as L we are wrong much more than we are right. That's why we have primary coverages.

Last season I helped out another veteran crew in the area. I knew them only by reputation before we met for the ride. Early in the game I was L and one of the veterans was C. There was a HUGE crash to the floor on a drive around the second lane space opposite from me. It looked like crap from my perspective and there wasn't a whistle. Being new to the crew, I passed and asked about it at a dead ball. The defensive player took a dive and it was no-called. Had I gone out of my primary to make what looked like the right call to me (probably a PC) I would have been dead wrong.

was this "no-call" confirmed through video breakdown after the game? While I believe and trust my partners, tape can totally change the story and those tapes are the ones that keep getting replayed and replayed on either TV or in the coaches office. So although your partner says flop on the court doesn't totally make it so. The tape has turned me into a liar plenty of times!

[Adam]

Originally Posted by btaylor64

was this "no-call" confirmed through video breakdown after the game? While I believe and trust my partners, tape can totally change the story and those tapes are the ones that keep getting replayed and replayed on either TV or in the coaches office. So although your partner says flop on the court doesn't totally make it so. The tape has turned me into a liar plenty of times!

Perhaps, but whom would you rather trust on the court. The C with an unobstructed view, or the L looking through a bunch of bodies? The question here isn't whether this play was definitively a block/charge/no-call. It's about the fact that you have to consider that your partner may well have a better look than you on a call that's in your partner's primary. Trust your partners.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by btaylor64

was this "no-call" confirmed through video breakdown after the game? While I believe and trust my partners, tape can totally change the story and those tapes are the ones that keep getting replayed and replayed on either TV or in the coaches office. So although your partner says flop on the court doesn't totally make it so. The tape has turned me into a liar plenty of times!

You cannot back up every call and situation with video. Unless we are getting national TV coverage with several camera angles and the ability to easily slow down frame by frame, the typical school tape might only show where the officials were standing. And that sometimes can be a stretch.

Peace

[Mregor]

Originally Posted by btaylor64

was this "no-call" confirmed through video breakdown after the game?

What kind of BS is that? As we have all seen numerous times, you can put a clip on here and get as many different opinions as there are people. It's a judgement call. Who needs to confirm? Will it change anything? He did the correct thing by not reaching. Had he come up with a whistle and later the C told hime he passed for a reason, would you make the same comment? If available, they could look at the play on tape and see why the lead wasn't ball side and say, maybe I should have rotated sooner, or maybe it was a curl and originated in T's primary and the T should have taken it all the way to the hoop (I'm just bringing up other scenarios and do not pretend to know the play or blame anyone for being out of position). That's what you can take from the play rather than trying to prove "I'm right, you're wrong". Just my $.02

Roger

[just another ref]

Comments of the casual observer about officiating often have little or no significance to the officials, but in this case I think they do. The casual observer may know nothing of areas of primary responsibility, but a "long distance call" tends to attract a lot of attention. "My gosh, he called it from all the way across the gym!" What's wrong with the other guy? It was right in front of him!"

There are exceptions to everything, but:

If you make this call and get it right, it tends to make the crew look bad.

If you make this call and get it wrong, it is pretty much unforgivable.

[jearef]

Doubleringer hit the nail on the head on this topic. There is a reason we have primary areas; experience has shown that when we stay in our primary, we have the best look at the play, and thus the best opportunity to get it right. There are always going to be exceptions, of course, but nothing can ever be done to make certain we get a 100% perfect view of each and every play. The areas of primary coverage are set up to maximize our opportunity to get the play right.

No disrespect intended to any of the previous posters, but in my pre-game, I never tell my partners that it's OK to invade my primary "if you are 100% sure". I don't know about everyone else, but whenever I blow my whistle, I feel like I am 100% sure. The video may ultimately prove me to be wrong, but at that moment, it feels like 100% to me, so I put air in the whistle. People who are much better at this than I have spent hundreds of hours breaking down tape to analyze calls. For example, when at the lead, if we call across the lane, tapes will show we are wrong nearly 50% of the time. If we stay in our own primary, our percentage is closer to 90. With that in mind, I agree with Rut's philosophy. If it's a non-basketball play, or a game-decider that everyone in the place could see, I'll go get it. Otherwise, I'm playing the odds and staying in my primary.

Primary coverage areas aren't just arbitrarily set up; they are set as they are to make sure that when we blow our whistles, we have the best chance of being right.

[Odd Duck]

I don't know what they teach in other areas...but around here this is a pre-game topic.

There are times when NOTHING is happening in your primary. When at C and 10 players are on the strong side of the court, we are taught to move onto the floor and EXPAND OUR PRIMARY so we can get the push in the back, illegal screen, holding of the back of the jersey, etc. I get the impression that according to some on this board, the C should never make that call because it is not in the C's primary as drawn in the book. Let the T live and die with it...after all, he should be able to watch the play in front of him AND see through all the traffic to get that call. At L, when all the play is above the free-throw line and the offense is buring the clock at the end of the game...are you just standing thing humming show tunes or are you expanding your primary looking for blatant holds, pushes, etc. that the defense may WANT called so they can put the 60% FT shooting post player on the line and not the 95% FT shooter handling the ball?

Just like there are reasons we have "primary" coverage areas, there are reasons we have "secondary" responsibilities. I get the impression from some of these post that some would be angry if there was a double whistle during one of their 3-official games.

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by Odd Duck

I don't know what they teach in other areas...but around here this is a pre-game topic.

There are times when NOTHING is happening in your primary. When at C and 10 players are on the strong side of the court, we are taught to move onto the floor and EXPAND OUR PRIMARY so we can get the push in the back, illegal screen, holding of the back of the jersey, etc. I get the impression that according to some on this board, the C should never make that call because it is not in the C's primary as drawn in the book. Let the T live and die with it...after all, he should be able to watch the play in front of him AND see through all the traffic to get that call. At L, when all the play is above the free-throw line and the offense is buring the clock at the end of the game...are you just standing thing humming show tunes or are you expanding your primary looking for blatant holds, pushes, etc. that the defense may WANT called so they can put the 60% FT shooting post player on the line and not the 95% FT shooter handling the ball?

Just like there are reasons we have "primary" coverage areas, there are reasons we have "secondary" responsibilities. I get the impression from some of these post that some would be angry if there was a double whistle during one of their 3-official games.

Even better: I do enough 3-man that every year I have a triple whistle in a 3-man game. It's always at the top of the lane, a bit below the FT line.

[Adam]

OD, obviously, your situations call for some flexibility, and no one here (that I know of) would deny that. For simplicity, we could look at this as a spectrum between "call what you see" and "stay in your primary."

Some refs are way on the side of CWYS, and others are completely in the SIYP land. The vast majority fit somewhere in the middle, on different spots along this spectrum for various reasons.

Obviously, if a C has no one in the primary, expanding is desired. But really, how often are all 10 players (or even 9 players) going to be on 1 side of the court? Half of those times, it will involve a rotation, then won't last long (as soon as an offensive player recognizes the wide open back door, it will go away).

Obviously, there are times to jump out and get those pushes in the back or travels in the paint. The problem comes when officials use the "CWYS" philosophy to look all over the court and end up missing the push in the back off the ball in their primary.

Originally Posted by Odd Duck

There are times when NOTHING is happening in your primary. When at C and 10 players are on the strong side of the court, we are taught to move onto the floor and EXPAND OUR PRIMARY so we can get the push in the back, illegal screen, holding of the back of the jersey, etc.

Just like there are reasons we have "primary" coverage areas, there are reasons we have "secondary" responsibilities. I get the impression from some of these post that some would be angry if there was a double whistle during one of their 3-official games.

I think most will agree that if there is nothing happening in your PCA we can/should expand, but at the same time perception is "why did the C call it from way over there & we have 2 officials right here".

As someone said earlier, in officiating you could be right & wrong (for different reasons) at the same time.

For the record, I think double whistles in the a 3 person game (in the appropriate situation of course) assists in solidifying the call.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by just another ref

There are exceptions to everything, but:

If you make this call and get it right, it tends to make the crew look bad.

If you make this call and get it wrong, it is pretty much unforgivable.

IOW:
If you're right, you're wrong.
If you're wrong, you're Ffffed.

[just another ref]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

IOW:
If you're right, you're wrong.
If you're wrong, you're Ffffed.

very profound

[SWMOzebra]

Originally Posted by Ch1town

For the record, I think double whistles in the a 3 person game (in the appropriate situation of course) assists in solidifying the call.

To my surprise (I work very little 3-whistle), this concept was actually stressed in both camps I attended this summer....double whistle in 2-man means someone is probably ball-watching, but a double-whistle in 3-man generally helps to sell the call.