Do you start calling tighter?

[zebraman]

MOfficial,

Advantage/Disadvantage works 95% of the time. But we have to be good enough officials to adjust to the game at hand and tighten up even more at times. If the players won't adjust, we may have to. There are times when we have to "tighten up" and it sounds like this is one of them.

Knowing when to do this is an art and separates some officials from others who can't recognize the situation. Even NBA officials do this on occasion. I had a couple games like that last year...my partner and I got together and said, "this game is getting too rough so let's clean it up before it gets worse." For the next couple of minutes, almost all contact became a foul rather than the ones that affected plays. I hated to do it, but it was necessary and solved the problem. Great game from then on. Preventative officiating in a way....prevented some garbage we wouldn't want to see later.

Z