Making Calls out of your primary.

[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.