4th foul

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by tadams

Back to the topic.....

So I am new to basketball, have done a ton of baseball. The original post was do you treat the 5th foul differently. I read all the posts and watched this thread wonder. I have heard "it better be good", "nothing cheap", give it to someone else if you can. I understand game management is always an issue. Maybe basketball is different but come on guys have some balls. As an official you are there to bring fairness to the game and apply the rules. Any vetern official will say to a rookie that the most important thing to learn as an official is to be consistant. By not calling the foul you are intentionally being unfair to the other team. Shame on you. If your standards of fouls change as the game progresses you deserve the grief you get. If it was a foul you would have called on a player with 0 fouls it has to be a foul on a player with 4.

Let the comments fly.

tadams,

When taken in context, without reading any sinister intent into them, the statements that have been made are true.

The fifth foul is the one people will remember, and the one people will assign the greatest importance to, which means it is the one that will be on the video your assigner gets. So absolutely, the fifth foul should be a "good one".

Nobody is suggesting that we call the fifth foul any differently than the first four. The first four fouls should be "good ones" too! But the fifth one is the biggie. And if you are the sort of official who tries to focus or bear down more when its really important, that's the moment.

Now the argument about giving the fifth foul to another player. If A1 gets fouled by multiple defenders, and its the sort of play where at any other point in the game you would simply pick one of the culprits and give him the foul...there is a school of thought that says you should consciously pick the kid who doesn't already have four fouls. How does that equate to having no balls?