change call...get it right?

[daveg144]

3 person crew...girls tournament

White leads blue by 2 points with 1:00 left in regulation. W-14 has the ball in the back court (just off the end line), but she is getting trapped in the corner. As she's turning to avoid the double team, she goes down (I am the trail...just off the court, about two or three feet from the player). I blow the whistle for a travel. W14 looks at me and says "I never lost my dribble!" About the same time, the trail comes running to me and he tells me that he had a very clear look at the play and she never stopped dribbling when she went down. CRAP!

We discussed it for a second and decided we had to go with an inadvertant whistle and white got the ball back. Naturally, the fans went crazy and when I explained the situation to the blue coach, he was not happy, but he understood we were getting the play right (he was frustrated because he had them trapped in the corner regardless of the travel call and now they got the ball out of bounds).

As it turns out, white threw the ball away as soon as they inbounded the ball and blue shot and missed three or four straight shots. White finally got the ball back with less than 10 seconds left and blue fouled with 6.3 left. White made one shot for a three point lead. Blue takes timeout and with 2 seconds left they get a wide open three point shot that bounces off the rim.

I feel like we got it right, but it was not pretty. In hindsight, I was probably too close to make the travel call. She was not pushed or bumped...she just went down as she tried to avoid the trap. I was looking more from the waist up to see if there would be a foul and I just didn't see her continue to dribble.

Other than that, it was a pretty good game.

PLease give me your thoughts...