Everyone survive their tourneys
 

Did all of you survive your Holiday Tourneys? I had two games? HS Girls. First was a blow out by the eventual winner of the tourney against the eventual number 5 finisher. The second was the 5th place game. Good game ... not the best teams but a really fun game nonetheless. I love holiday tourneys. Now it's a JV/V combo Monday night.

I don't anticipate hearing from those who did not.....

Survive is right. Seven games, 3 Ts (2 players and 1 head coach), one overtime and one almost overtime if the kid makes a wide open layup with a second to go. Now I am looking forward to a break until January 5.

Peace

Maybe she can help. Yeah, right. :p

http://www.celebritypsychic.com/temp...mage/Irene.jpg

Funny you should mention that........ I was assigned to work the championship game of a small (4 team) girls tournament on Tuesday night. Smaller (2A) schools. Pretty laid-back tournament... the home team got bounced in the first round so the championship game was two teams who were quite a ways from home. Probably a total of 100 people in the stands. First half is pretty routine.... except that the white team's crowd is whining about everything. Even routine OOB calls. The blue team's crowd is absolutely perfect, just cheering their team and not having any negative comments. I am just laughing inside thinking, "this is one of the reasons that I do not help out with much girls ball anymore."

About halfway through the 3rd quarter, the ball goes out of bounds in front of my partner. Routine OOB. He correctly gives it to blue. White crowd (who is seated across from the play and all the way on the other end of the gym) goes ballastic. I have had enough. :eek: I put my hand up to prevent my partner from putting the ball inbounds. I walk to the other end, stand right in front of the 50 fans of the white team, hit my whistle and say (in my parent voice), "let the players play, let the refs ref. We do not need comments on every call." The gym goes dead silent. I turn back around and walk to my position. I am thinking, "oh boy, you've done it now dummy - you're really gonna get it." I was expecting that one moron to yell, "well, call it right then!" as I walked away. Instead, I hear this quiet applause that gets louder and louder. I turn around and the blue section is clapping, including 5 of them who are standing while they applaud. Two girls of the WHITE team walk by me and say, "thank you."

I look at my partners and they are both smiling in disbelief. We never heard another word and the game went right down to the end as white missed a jumpshot at the end to lose by one.

Not sure I'd ever try that again....... The stars must have been perfectly aligned. :-)

I think I had 11 games, two championships (one went to overtime) and my T average went down. :D

My next game is Tuesday and it will probably be the most challenging situation for me so far this year.

How come?

I walked into the back gym the other day and watched the crew working. I quickly became pissed and asked an official there about the crew. He told me he doesn't even talk to this one official because they don't like each other. I make sure the assigner knows how bad of a job this crew did - they totally ignored all of the video we have watched and the instruction our instructional chair has given. The R was the worst of the crew. Now, my opinion isn't the end all, be all, but there is not reason to lack hustle and strong mechanics. He couldn't get into position to see plays because he was being super lazy!

Bingo, I'm working with this guy on Tuesday! So I tell my friend who my crew is for Tuesday. I hadn't told him about seeing this official and I told him who both my partners are. He sends me a text saying, "You are going to want to kill_______." Mmm, so this is a problem.

It has been many years, if ever, where I've had to deal with such a combination of things that go against the crew concept and doing a good job on a game. But I need him for 32 minutes, if not longer, so I have to devise a strategy to make this happen. I don't know him and what I would normally say to him may piss him off so I have to be careful. He is that bad.

Good luck.....and be sure to come back and tell us what a great time you had....;)

Can you play 'good cop, bad cop' in such a situation?:eek:

Well, an Officials Forum "Shut up" probably would not have been as effective.

My guess would have been because it will be his first game this year. :rolleyes:

For some reason, I liked his reason better than yours...... :)

Didn't get any tournament games this year, hopefully next year. I did survive Christmas with the in-laws though so that should count for something. :D

Maybe this might help,

I am working on implementing the things we have been instructed this season to do. We need to make sure that we are the best team on the floor tonight and that we are the best crew these teams will see this season.

Ask the official what types of things they would like to discuss so that they can referee their best. Does that person have any pet peeves, any strange situations, etc. that can be discussed and used to bring the crew together.

To these teams this is the most important game of the night/season, let's be sure we give them our best until the very end. Let's hustle, be deadball efficient, and have fun.

Yes and No.....
 

I had a great game....I got to work (girls) Mater Dei vs. Jefferson (Oregon's defending 5A state champs). That was a real treat. Great ball (a lot closer game than anyone expected...the lead was down to 6 midway through the 4th before Mater Dei stomped on the accelerator and put it away), great coaches, great crowd. That was a ball of fun and even though I work more boys ball than girls, I'd take that game any day. :D

Fast forward a couple of days....

Sitting at home one afternoon with a game schedule at 7:45pm. When an unexpected snowstorm hits. The site is normally about 40-45 minutes away. My partner and I plan to leave early to account for the weather. He leaves his house at 4:45 to pick me up (normally 5 minutes away) and makes it to my house at 5:10. We hit the road. After a long and torturous journey, we roll into the gym at....

8:25-8:30...halftime!!

The guys who worked the first half were not even scheduled for the game before...they were there from earlier having worked for others who never even made it. We would have let them finish it but they were ready to go after having been there all day.

Second have went fast (not a great game).....in the door and out in about 35 minutes......then another 2.5 hours home.

Over 6 hours of dirve time for 2 quarters of ball....ouch.:eek:

Between December 18 and December 30 I worked 14 varsity holiday tournament games at six different locations in five different cities/towns. Attendance at these events in my area of Georgia has dramatically dropped in recent years. They are still fun to work, but smaller crowds means more individual "heckler" voices heard by officials and greater frustration with the behavior of spectators and coaches.

I worked several opening round games, several consolation games, and one really good girls' semi-final contest. Of the 14 games, only three were settled by six points or less and one of those three was a double-overtime game.

Most Georgia holiday tournament games are worked by "district partnership" crews. These are crews made up of members from more than one officials' association. Officials are often evaluated by state office personnel during these games.

A few days off before we crank it back up January 5.

What the H-E-double hockey sticks is wrong with you? Haven't you been paying attention to anything I've said? :eek:

I know!!!! Bad officiating!!! :-)

Next thing you know, you'll be claiming you've forgotten the first rule of officiating! :rolleyes:

I Beg Of You, Please Don't Ask, No, I Implore You ...
 

HoopsRefJunior: I can see that you have posted only two dozen times, so I expect that you don't know Mark Padgett's first rule of officiating. Please, if you believe in a higher power, and that the world is basically a good, just, place, don't ask what this rule is.

You know, Billy Mac, all of us know you are just baiting him.

tjones1 and I got into the holiday spirit on Wednesday at the Charleston Holiday Tournament. As a crew we had 5 player technical fouls and one player ejection. It was the worst varsity game I have been involved in.

We are way past doing/saying anything like this with this guy. I think I will do my normal pregame and then jump on him with two feet when he starts BSing on the court. We have got great instruction/guidelines from the instructional chair and I'm sick of seeing guys go out and ignore what he has been saying. We receive weekly video clips; I finally made a clip...for something good. :D

I heard about this game from my regular partner. I have them in 4 weeks. Should be fun.

I was in Bloomington/Normal working the girls side of the State Farm Holiday Classic. All games went great and the assigner for the post season was there to see our crew work and said we did a great job.

We know that you are blaming Tanner for that. :D

At least we can be sure that he brought multiple whistles with him and so wasn't at a loss when the first one wore out. ;)