Officials: Jim Burr, Doug Shows, Bryan Kersey
Technical fouls: TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS-None. GONZAGA BULLDOGS-None.
Attendance: 3914
Score by Periods 1st 2nd Total
TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS.......... 31 43 - 74
GONZAGA BULLDOGS.............. 35 48 - 83

Pretty darn good crew.

If the defender has LGP, then yes. It's a basic of officiating basketball.

Edited to clarify - you're "slide underneath" comment is not a quality one. If the defender can get to a position where the contact is in the torso, then obviously he "slid" there before the offensive player got there. And if that happens, it's a PC foul if the defender had established LGP.

Not coincidentally, I'm sure, this was forwarded to me by my D3 association:

4-23-1: "Every player is entitled to a spot on the playing court provided such player gets there first without illegally contacting an opponent."


In the play at hand, what I see is the defender leaning backward as he slides into the path of the dribbler. At contact, the defender's feet are straddling the offensive player. As far as I'm concerned, this defender did not "get there first,"
and this would have been a block whether the dribbler had gone airborne or not.

I'm still trying to figure out how the defender could be contacted in the torso if he didn't get there first? Is there a rule against leaning backwards? Is that when an offensive player puts his leg between a defensive players legs (hence, causing the defensive player to "straddle" the offensive player) that it constituted illegal activity on the defender's part?

He got there first. The problem was that he wasn't there when A1 went airborne.

4-45-6: A defender may not "belly up" or use the lower part of the body or arms to cause contact outside his/her vertical plane which is a foul.

Sounds a lot like a description of this play to me.

I guess we're seeing different plays. The defender doesn't belly up at all - but rather leans backwards. Those are different things.

"Bellying up" and leaning backwards to avoid taking a shot in the face are two entirely differnt things and in no way should be used to judge whether a collision is a block or a PC foul. There is no restriction on leaning backwards when one is about to get run over.

True if he had been there waiting for the contact. That was not the case here.
A position on the court reaches from floor to ceiling. At contact of this play, I do not see that this defender had established a spot in the path of the dribbler.

That would be why pretty much everyone on this topic has said it was a block. Not because the defender was leaning back, but because he wasn't there in time.

The C called a PC (in my opinion) because this was a secondary defender jumping in there and the C didn't get a good look at the whole thing...

Agreed. I'm saying that leaning back is an attempt to distort the appearance of getting there in time. Someone earlier objected to the use of this description, but, yes, he "slid under him" to some degree.

I am a little late to this party, but the defender came out of the C's primary and the L (Burr) was working strong side. He "pinched the paint" as the officials are told to do and made a call that is more of a secondary call for the L.

Now having said all that, I think he was the one that got it right. Kid had LGP, slid (huge base...no longer in position).

I like "slid under" better than "leaning back"...one is not legal, and one is.

I would say one is a part of the other. The defender leans back in order to slide under.

This is what I saw. He stuck his right knee out causing contact. In fact, looking at it again I don't think he ever established LGP.