Scorekeeper Forgets to Record Team Fouls
 

B7 game last night. Hack Fest. Game is lopsided early. Score was 25-5 at half. Winning coach was "nice enough" to back out of his full-court, man-to-man press at the start of the 3rd qtr.....he went to a half-court, man-to-man press. Almost every time H comes across the Division Line there is a steal and we're going the other way. Great game to ref - NOT!

Anyhow, end of the 3rd qtr and I go to the table to check things out. "How we doing guys?" "Score ok?" How we doing with time outs?" "How many team fouls do we have?" Uh oh......

Between the half and the third period the original scorekeeper left and the H Asst coach took over the H books. V had a "challenged scorekeeper." No one knows how many team fouls we have for this half as neither appeared to be recording them. Both teams were well over the double bonus in the first half, so team totals stopped being counted at 10 each so there is really no way to go back and subtract. How would you handle it? Thoughts?

Between 2nd and 3rd quarters, right? So the problem really matters only to see who fouls out. Just make sure they're counting for the second half, and don't worry about the first half. Get it done.

Mbyron - No, it's between the 3rd and 4th qtrs where the problem is. The foul counts for the 1st half were over 10 per team, so they stopped recording team fouls then and never started in the 2nd half.

Example - If H would have had had 8 team fouls in the 1st half and now have 13, we would have known they had 5 in the third qtr. But, since H had 10+ (unknown #), and now have 19 total, it makes a difference if the first half total was 12, 13, or 14.

Hope that make it clearer.

Keeping Score
 

One trick is to have the score keepers "color in" the personal fouls at half. Especially, if a new keeper arrives at half. This way you can count the personal fouls in the 3 and 4th quarters to tie out to the running team total.

During halftime of middle school games (generally a student may be doing the book), I make sure each book agrees with the other. I color in the half time running score. I also color in the personal fouls.

For your case, I would start counting team fouls from that point on and not try any guessing as to how many you had called.

Nobody has yet to address grunewar's problem; and I hate to say it but this is wear NFHS/NCAA R2-S3 will rear its ugly head. Since this was a blowout, I would bring the coaches together, explain the situation and tell them that the team foul count will start now; unless you have any information that will remotely help determine how many fouls were committed in the first half, you really can not do much more than this. If this were a close game, well I do not want to even think about what I would do. There is a moral to this story, when I see that I have a new person at the S/T Table, I want to know why a change has been made and make sure that the new person is up to speed on his duties.

MTD, Sr.

We draw a vertical line after any existing fouls. It's worked for over a decade. . . I also have the SK write down the arrow's direction.

For FIBA games, since fouls reset every quarter, I ask them to use a different stroke each quarter.

I believe in Iowa, especially the girls association, they are required to use different colored ink for the quarters. At first, when I did a game on Iowa side of the river, I thought it was bizarre that every scorekeeper at the girls' games were using those multicolored pens, but when I got an explanation once from an AD, it made a whole lot of sense.

Thanks MTD! I brought both coaches together and explained exactly that.

Being this was a long game with little flow (we probably had 40+ fouls and countless violations by this time and V was up by ~35) both coaches were agreeable and friendly about it.

My partner (who must be related to Padgett) has been away from the table watching the players (we've been taught never have both officials at the table and none watching the players) hears me tell the coaches what we're going to do and moves in and says, "Is that it? Oh, I've been counting and know exactly how many fouls everyone has!" :eek: We all chuckled and started the team foul count over. I don't believe the players or fans knew what the issue was.

Also, as stated by MTD, when the adult Asst Coach took over the duties of scorekeeper voluntarily, I "assumed" he was experienced and knew what he was doing. "Assumed". Lesson learned and great point!

Thanks to the others for the advice on keeping the books - I've kept them many times and never thought of some of those methods.

I started using different colors ever since a controversy when my dad was scoring a CYO season-ending tournament game. I have a set of 8 colored pens I rotate and I also switch the direction of my hash marks at the half, so that first half fouls are marked / and second half are marked \. The only exception is offensive fouls which I circle.

I've also begun to put a bar ( | or _ if the AP goes up to down) at the end of the AP for the quarter so I know whose ball it is to start the next one.

Even if the team foul count goes above 10 in the first half, I'll use + signs to indicate each foul above 10, just incase there is an issue with team fouls later in the game.

At MS games where we have a student scoring the home back, I make more of an emphasis to ask them about the foul count/time outs remaining just so there are no surprises in crunch time.

{NBA Aside} I will also use a triangle on the team foul count to indicate the first foul in the last two minutes. {/NBA Aside} I still find myself doing this even under NFHS rules. :D

About the only thing I would add here is that you could at least determine if you have had any SHOOTING fouls in the 3rd quarter (perhaps the double circles or at least a couple vertical 1s here and there). I don't know what else you could count without having direct knowledge.

I have always been more of a black-and-white kind-a-guy -- at least when it comes to scorekeeping. I trained scorekeepers in our league's gyms for years. My technique was simple. Make a normal slash (lower left to upper right) when recording each foul. At halftime (instead of running to get a hot dog or shooting at one of the baskets), the scorer would then change the spare (lower left to upper right slash) to a strike by making a back slash (lower right to upper left) mark over each existing foul. Just to be safe, I would then ask them to make the vertical bar for each player after all "strikes". I would also have them place a straight dash (-) through the remaining team fouls for the first half. This would force them to remember to record the team fouls in the second half boxes. I would also have them "close out" each quarter by making a squiggly line down through the quarter while capturing the total points and circling the number at the bottom of the quarter. This would prevent the scorer from accidentally recording scoring in the previous quarter. They would also make the similar vertical bar through the running score following each quarter. by completely "closing out" each quarter, any discrepancies were much easiter to see. We also created a line on the scoresheet for the possession arrow AND for referee fee paid (that was important for some folks ;)).

Coach:

Excellent point. I did not think of that. And yes, in my opinion, I would consider that direct knowledge of some fouls that occured in the third quarter.

MTD, Sr.