To reach or not reach

Originally Posted by Smitty

The obvious first response is: why are you looking there?

But since we sometimes see things, in the first case, can you be absolutely positively sure that the defensive player didn't touch the ball, causing it to drop? If you didn't see that play from a perfect angle and cannot be 100% sure of what you saw (not what you think you saw), you should let your partner live and die with it.

Second case, again you need to be 100% certain you saw it, and then I would only ever call it if I thought my partner was screened from seeing the kid's knee.

If it's a veteran partner, I'm letting him live and die with it. You shouldn't even be looking there in the first place.

Uhh ohhh there's the ol' HS mentality rearing it's ugly head again

The exceptional official can chew bubble gum & walk at the same time, you know, multi-tasking.

I've invested quite a bit of change in myself over the past few summers by attending high level, quality camps, I've mixed in some HS camps as well.

It's funny because the HS camps I've attended all say stay in your primary, etc.

The DI & NBA camps I've attended says referee your PCA while seeing as much of the court as possible. As a matter of fact, they want two sets of eyes on particular plays with congested action areas. You know there are front & back sides to some plays right?

When I had the HS mentality I couldn't get past the first week of HS post-season. Then I started following the higher level camps advice & became a State Tourney Official. Go figure

Why are you looking there anyway is so basic...
If you have an unengaged match-up (non-competitive for the HS mentality refs) do you just stay there watching those 2 or 4 people or go to the next layer of the play that can hurt you???

In my first scenario, the shooter was a lefty, the T was at half-court on the shooters right side. So I snuck a peek to cover that left arm, if that's okay.
Many times a partners lack of hustle makes the exceptional official have to go outside of their PCA for the good of the GAME.

In the second scenario 8 players were below the FT line extended & I had nothing else going on, so I chose to look down there, if that's okay.

The other day I had a partner guessing on a 3 pt attempt. He didn't position adjust to see the feet & when he signalled the successful make, I said it was a two. He asked why was I looking up there anyway?? I said to help my partner get it right as we are all we got

FYI post entry plays in a 3 person game requires all 3 officials to work that play.
L looks for illegal contact by offense & defense on entry.
T picks up the pivot foot for travels.
Slot -errr- Ct is preparing for the curl play.