That leads to my question. Are officials who only worked the 1st round still in consideration for the Sweet 16/Elite 8?

not working the 2nd round does not prevent you from moving on in the tourney. Stats from last year to come......

My assumption was that if you didn't advance from Round 1 to Round 2 you were done. Is that not the case?

There is no advancement from Rd 1 to Rd 2. The officials know going into the 1st weekend whether or not they will be working 1 round or 2.

4 officials in the 2008 tourney worked the 2nd weekend but only received a first round game. They were: Kelly Self, Rick Hartzell, Gerry Pollard, and Bert Smith.

All 4 worked the Sweet 16 round and none of them advanced to the Final Four.

In 2007 there were 2 and in 2006 there were 3. They all worked the Sweet 16 and none of them advanced to the Final Four.

Do you guys assume that the highest rated officials from the first weekend work the Elite 8 games? Because that would be interesting to see the percentage of guys who work in the final four from the Sweet 16 round.

According to my sources, getting only 1 game in the first round of the 64 does not preclude an official to advance to the Sweet 16. Sometimes the 2nd game can hurt an official if they grade out badly during the 2nd round game and thus don't advance to the Sweet 16 round.

The Sweet 16 round is assigned to 9 officials per site. They are told on Monday (today) which game they will work; a Sweet 16 (Thurs or Fri) game or Elite 8 (Sat or Sun). One (or two) of the officials on the Elite 8 game will be the alternate for the crews on the Sweet 16 game.

Of course this was the case last year with Hank Nichols. How John Adams will do it this year is entirely up to him.

The true notable absences are the big name guys who usually get 2 games who didn't this year. That's a pretty big message from a new assignor. Hightower, Tim Higgins, Mike Kitts etc.

You need to realize that officials are informed if they are working one game or two for the weekend. Then no matter how many games you worked, you may or may not advance. I believe those people are informed today if they are working this coming weekend. By this list we have no idea who is going to work further or not work.

Peace

I think Valentine is in a different class than the others TODAY. Teddy is theatrical, yes, but he is a damned solid (and still fairly young) official who runs the floor well and isn't afraid to make a nutcutter call when needed.

(The one I saw this past weekend was when he called a throwin violation (and an obvious one, too) as the C when the thrower-in ran the line when he wasn't entitled to and the official administering the throw-in didn't realize it or didn't see it. Deer in the headlights look on the administering official's face was pretty obvious, but he went with what Teddy had right away.)

Ted seems to be in much better shape than he was 5+ years ago, too.

Teddy V. has worked the Final Four is the past couple of years.

So did Hightower. Last year too, I believe.

Not just the Final Four, the National Championship game as the Referee (they do not just give that to anyone) ;)

Peace

I'm curious to know why people criticize Hightower and Valentine for their "theatrics", but nobody says anything about David Hall's or Scott Thornley's theatrics. Plus, what Hightower and Valentine do is not needed, but they aren't always doing things to put themselves in worst positions to referee the game. I think there is a big diefference between putting some extra flavor on what you do and jumping around until you are out of position.

Why do officials bend over and put their hands on their knees? Totally useless and it looks bad.

Yes, it looks odd. I wouldn't say bad, since often a ball bounces around like a pinball - the hands on the knees shows you're on top of it.

If one thinks it looks bad, it's nowhere near as worse than making a show out of a simple out of bounds call, and then getting the call wrong. :cool:

I agree.

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