help with first year partner

[referee99]

Originally Posted by refinks

Had a situation the other night that I'm questioning myself about. Boys freshman game, working with first year partner. Actually doing a pretty decent job, but got us into trouble at the end of first half. Visiting team is getting offensive rebound after offensive rebound, had about 5 putbacks, finally got one to go in the basket, partner is lead and he blows the whistle. I'm expecting an and one because I saw the shooter get hacked, but he points the other way. Visiting coach goes crazy, and I have no idea what the call is. I assume travelling and I let it go. Talking to partner at halftime, I ask him what he had, and he had a 3 second violation. Oh boy. I quickly give him a course on the three second violation, making sure he understands that the count resets after the shot, and in this situation there couldn't have been 3 seconds.

My question is, what could I have done differently had I known he had a 3 second violation to begin with? Would it have been proper for me to go discuss it with him and get the call right? Then if so, obviously we can't give the basket and the and one to the visiting team, as this would not have been fair to the home team, as neither one of us initially had a foul call. The only solution i can think of would be go inadvertent whistle and go to the arrow. Is that correct?

If I have a young official I might offer this guidance pre-game:
"Partner, we're going to be working hard to be the best team out here tonight. When you have something, let me know. Tell me what you have and where we will inbound the ball. If you have a foul, I'll get your shooter for you and set it up. If you have a violation, give me a great mechanic and a good loud declarative statement about the violation. Let's stay focused on communicating with each other, and the communications with the table and the coaches will take care of itself."

re: knowing they screwed up the call, you have to pick your spots. Think about help on an out-of-bounds call by a partner. He might call "Red Ball", but from your angle you definitely saw Red touch last. I would blow, go to partner and tell them what I saw. It would be up to him to change his call.

I had a game with a first year a couple of weeks ago. A1 inbounding, throws it, B2 bats it back to A1 who catches it OOB. Partner declares "Team A ball". Benches and fans are howling. I blow, go over and offer what I saw, ask it that's what he saw, then offer that if A1 was OOB when they caught it, then the ball should go to Team B, right? Left it up to him and he changed it.

Now, with a 3-second violation in the sitch you described, if I knew the violation he called, I wouldn't make that move. I would get to them at the first opportunity so we can prevent it for the remainder, but they are going to live and die with that call.