Looking for a Toe
 

I had a game this past week (2 official) and this occurred.

Ball is moving around perimeter and as lead I'm looking through the action of people cutting through the paint. Guy catches and squares up near the top of key slightly towards the strong side and I notice that his feet are on the line. After the shot goes in, I notice my partner was as deep as the 28' mark and maybe deeper and is signalling a three. I whistled it, told the table that it was a 2, administered the throw-in and along we went.

The def. coach (it was in the 1st half and right in front of his bench) told me it was a "good call" (of course he would, right?). At halftime, my partner thanked me because he couldn't see it (so he guessed, apparently).

Questions:
Should the lead be noticing / looking for jump shooters feet?
If you were the T, would you be upset?
Should the L come out and change this call?

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Get it right.
 

You're a team. It's a team sport. Get the play right.

No.

Part of learning how to do this thing call officiating involves teaching yourself to focus on your primary. For me, this means not making calls on things like this out of my primary. Once I quit blowing my whistle on these plays, it became easier to quit ball watching.

I agree, get the call right, but if I was your partner I'd be a little miffed that you didn't come and talk to me about it before just changing it. It's my call, and if you have information you want to share, by all means come share it with me and allow me to change my own call so I don't look like an a$$.

Also, I think you were fine for seeing the toe on the line. A lot of people will give you a lot of grief for seeing things that are outside of your primary, but we don't work with blinders on. You can watch your primary and see things outside of it at the same time. Don't worry about that so much. Focus on your primary, and if you happen to see something outside of it, talk it over with your partner.

Don't mean to sound picky, but shouldn't you be watching the other action closer to you in your primary? (guess I'm who fiasco's talking about). Toe on the line being viewed from the L is a bit of a reach, isn't it?

To answer your questions,

1. Depends. If there is little to no action in your primary, of course you can take a quick peak. I think a valid point is if you blow it dead and there was tonnes of action if your primary. Who is/was watching that when you looked at toes?
2. No. My believe is to get it right. So I would not mind it if the L came in. If the L does come in, I would appreciate him letting me change my own call. He can "offer more info", but word it in such a way that he's making the call. Because he did come in, he is 100% sure of my mistake. Yes, I have guessed on a 3PA before, but I hate it when I do - so if one of those comes up, I know that I'm not giving my full effort. Time for me to pick it up some.
3. Yes. Blow it dead right away and get together with the T. If in your pre-game the L (or T) is to overrule and just count it, then so be it.

Not at all. You can be looking at the action at the free throw lane and see out of the corner of your eye the 3-pt shooter's foot on the line.

Like I said, we don't ref with blinders on.

In this case, the outcome was good because the right call was made. Having said that, however, I'm not necessarily sure it's a good habit to get into. In terms of high school basketball, I think the thing that moved my game from being a sub-varsity official to being a varsity level official (Note: sub-varsity vs varsity official is not meant to be an insult to anyone...just an analogy) was learning to focus on my area and not follow the ball. This was tough, beacuse let's face it, the ball is where most of the good action is. The fact that you and your partner had focused on the shooter (regardless of whether or not your partner could clearly see the feet and 3 point arc), means that there were 8 or 9 other players on the court that neither of you were watching. And that's not a good thing.

It's absolutely possible that despite focusing on your primary, you may still have seen the shooter's toes on the line, but I think that'd be the exception, rather than the norm.

That seemed pretty definitive, Snaqs. ;)

Not so for me. Sometimes I can see to help a partner on those threes [only twice, so far]

Once was like the original post, but instead of my good partner [Zebra44] marking a three [cuz he wasn't gonna guess the three like the OP indicated], he looked at me and I helped. I was [2-whistle] Lead and the players parted, like the Red Sea, to give me the view.

The other time, a lesser partner [Strong-side Trail] guessed and marked a three near our primary intersections, and I changed it to two on the fly.

If your partner is staying that far out from the action, it makes it rough for you. He wasn't where he needed to be. If the action was, as you say, around the perimeter, there may not have been much going on in your primary. I can easily imagine that you'd see the play clearly, and then you do have an obligation to get it right. However, I'd had talked to the partner about changing it himself, rather than just overriding him at the table.

So, we are supposed to be cognizant of where our partner(s) are & where the ball is while refereeing our PCA right?

I see nothing wrong with sneaking-a-peak at the line when we know our partner is out of position.
After all it's about getting it right.

Now had your partner closed down on the shot, there would be no need to look waaaaayyyy up there. JMO

Not me, Jewel.
Partner guessed and that was the *No,no*.
I would quietly tell him later.

We all look out of our PCA, let be honest. If you see it, I think most have the opinion about getting it right. I would always talk with my partner and let him change the call however.

-Josh

We could add shades of gray to discussion.
 

I'm lead.
Shooter is:
In my PCA. All good

In 'trouble area' FT line extended in front of me.
--- In 'trouble area' after moving from my PCA
--- In 'trouble area' coming from top of lane

Just out of 'trouble area' between FT line extended at top of arc top of lane
--- In this area after moving from my PCA (say off of screen I'm observing)

There are times when lead has information on plays like this, properly, fortuitously, (or both) obtained.

I am in the "Get it right -- by providing partner with information" school. Fortunately I have yet to have that partner who doesn't take my information because they want to save face to the detriment of the players.

That depends on what the standard mechanics are in your area. Here, and in NCAAW, a "2 to a 3" or a "3 to a 2" are just changed. No discussion. Get the ball back in play.

In other areas, it's discussed, just as an OOB call (that might be chaged) is.