4 T's in Season opener
 

I worked my first game of the season last week; Private schools, Varsity Boys. Me and my P call 4 T's in the game. I call one for 6 men on the court and one for a player slamming the ball down after a call he did not agree with. P calls one for a player grabbing the rim, and one for a player slapping the backboard. I hope this is not a sign of things to come. I have 2 JV games tomorrow, 1 girls 1 boys. 2 Christian schools, surely no T's tomorrow. ;)

No but probably a buch of rowdy fans screaming about how incompitent you are. Around here, the private Christian schools have the WORST fans. Sad really.

There is no reason to expect better behavior from a Christian School. A friend of mine teaches at a Christian School. He says they generally get two kinds of kids. One kind is the kids from religious families who are trying to shield them from the bad influences of the world. The other kind are kids who screwed up so bad at public school that the parents are trying to "fix them" by sending them to a Christian School.

I know. I'd hate to have games in which only 4 Ts get called. How boring.

I would say to try and avoid that many T's try to officiate more without the whistle. Some things are going to happen but what can we say or do off the ball or while are partner is reporting to try and circumvent poor decisions by individual players?

When players come in did the same number go out? Are we communicating as partners before putting the ball in play? Would closing on the play and getting frustrated players to go where they belong possibly keep them from doing something stupid? Unless a kid is trying to be sneaky and hide from you in a far corner, I never want to call 6 players on the court personally.

Maybe some of the more veteran officials have other ideas of what we can do to try and keep from calling many T's.

While I do agree that allowing 6 players on the court is a failure on the part of the crew, this is early season basketball. Stuff is going to happen. Give them another week and they'll stop doing most of the stupid stuff (the kids and the crew).

I disagree that 6 on the court is necessarily a failure of the crew. There are times it happens in spite of the best game management. As for the rest; don't worry about it. Sometimes you have games like that.

I'll be surprised if I have a backboard slapper or a ring grabber all season; let alone both, let alone both in one game. You can't prevent that stuff; and 99 times out of 100, you can't prevent the ball slamming either.

One thing you should never do is consider your game less than successful because of the number of Ts.

I disagree this this line of thinking for any game and especially for 3 out of the 4 T's called in this situation. How could he have talked to players during a dead ball to keep them from grabbing the rim or slapping the backboard? OK, so there is two of the four right there. Additionally, I'm not going to rush in to console a player because he doesn't like my partner's call or a call I made so the kid who slammed the ball is on his/her own. Finally, I would like to hear more details about how 6 players ended up on the floor. Like someone said, ultimately we cannot prevent everything and it sounds like this was two-man game which means two fewer eyes to see things.

I always cringe when I hear of officials counting T's, discouraging T's or worrying about T's. It is easier to stop calling them than to start, but I haven't witnessed any drop off in the amount of unsporting actions in basketball games so why should the T's decrease? I think we should call more because the game, and our society as a whole, is getting worse by the minute.

Okay, you have a point. I'll revise my statement. Allowing 6 players on the court is nearly always a failure on the part of the crew.

If you hang around here long enough you'll hear stories o'plenty about weird situations where the 6th player got there despite the crew's efforts. But in my real life, I've never had a 6th player that I didn't miss. And, in my real life, I've never seen a 6th player that wasn't just missed by the crew.

But it's still a coaching failure, not an officiating failure.

While sometimes things happen out of the blue sometimes they can be prevented by dealing with minor aggressions early. For example if people were showing disapproval with calls early a word to the player or captain may prevent the ball spike later.

If making sure 10 players (and only 10) are on the court were as much the officials' responsibility as you make it out to be, I'm sure it wouldn't be a technical foul.

Allowing 6 players on the court is as much of a failure by the crew as not making sure the foul count is even. We're supposed to call the game fairly, but it's the coaches' jobs to make sure their players aren't fouling and have the right number of players on the court. That's why THEY get the technical, not US.

I had a ring grabber in a 6th grade boys rec game quite a while ago. He was Maurice Lucas' son. Not kidding.

Sometimes it happens this way, sometimes they go from zero to sixty in 2 seconds, and sometimes you talk to them and it doesn't help.

I'm only reacting to the insinuation that 4 Ts is a sign of failure.

It is the responsibility of the officials to ensure that there are five players from each team on the floor before the ball is put into play. Do others also have responsibilities...yes, but that does not eliminate or reduce the official’s responsibilities.

Then explain to me why the committee still considers this a T.

Not according to the rule book it's not.

You're talking about a mechanic. That's wholly different than a "responsibility."

Officials are supposed to check to be sure the correct spots are occipied before administering a FT -- but if they don't, it's still a violaiton (or a double violation).

Officials are supposed to check that the correct number of players are in the book, but if they don't and a player is added, it's still a T.

IOW, officials are responsible for managing the game. Teams are responsible for complying with the rules. Sometimes the responsibiities look the same.

Yep. By the book it is ultimately the coach's responsibility to ensure he has exactly five players on the floor. Or is it? It sounds to me like you're saying 6 players = T to coach = coach's responsibility. Only it isn't a coach T, it's a team T.

Nevertheless, every assigner I've ever worked for, and every assigner that I hope to work for, isn't interested in the coach's culpability in this situation. If my crew allows 6 players when we could have prevented it, WE catch hell for it. That's reality.

There's a lot to this job that isn't spelled out in the rules book. That doesn't make it any less our job nor absolve us of the responsibility when things go wrong because we didn't do our job.

My first game of the season last Friday, I held up my partners twice because one team had 6 on the floor. Got the thumbs up for that.

It was my first varsity game, too. :)

Good awareness.

That gets an ATTABOY!!

I Thought You Had This League Under Control ???
 

You let the kids wear those nipple rings in your recreation league? I hope that it's not a coed league?