Table Crew From Hell ...
 

Worst table crew, ever, in twenty-nine years, for a boys varsity game last night. Man, I wish these guys had had a pregame.

1) My partner calls the first foul of the game. He moves to the reporting area and waits for the young man, a high school student wearing a very nice tie, who is the home scorekeeper, to make eye contact with him. The young man is talking to a player on the home bench near the table. After a few seconds, the timekeeper finally elbows the scorekeeper to pay attention, and my partner finally reports the foul.

2) Timekeeper, the home athletic director, never figured out the possession arrow. It was wrong the entire game.

3) Several minutes into the third period. Home team is up by twenty points. Foul count is four against home, one against visitor. During a thirty second timeout, the visiting scorekeeper, a young lady, also a high school student, calls me over to the table and says that there is a problem. She tells me that the home scorer has three fouls on Visitor #33, while she has only two charged to Visitor #33. I tell both scorekeepers to get both the books to match. They can't agree. They start comparing team fouls and personal fouls, in both the first and second half. The time out is now long over. I tell the players to stay near their benches and my partner joins the pow wow. Neither scorekeeper is going to budge on this issue. Home scorekeeper wants to use coaches stat sheet as a backup to his scorebook. I tell him no way, we're going to get this done here at the table. I tell them again to make the scorebooks books match. What I really want to say is, "Look guys, this is a twenty point blowout game. I would bet my house that Home is going to win, even if Visitor #33 has no fouls. Hey you, kid with the tie, can't you just erase Visitor #33's third foul? Why should I believe you have the correct fouls, you weren't even watching my partner when he tried to report a fouls in the first half, you were fooling around with a friend? Your going to win this game no matter how many fouls Visitor #33 has. Hey you, high school girl, can't you just let the winning team's scorekeeper, and, if you haven't figured it out, they are going to win this game, no matter what, have his way and change your scorebook so that Visitor #33 had three fouls. By any chance is Visitor #33 your boyfriend? Are you afraid he's going to foul out? C'mon guys. give me a break." But, of course, I can't say that, it would be unprofessional, so I pretend that I care about the foul disparity, I get the young lady to add a third foul to Visitor #33, and we play on.

Why waste so much time trying to make them match? If they can't figure it out within a reasonable length of time, go with the home book..just like the rules tell you to.

Lah me......

In My Unprofessional Opinion ...
 

Which is what we did, but in this blowout game, anything more than ten seconds was an unreasonable amount of time. The whole discussion probably lasted ninety seconds, but it seemed like ten minutes.

Some questions for you, BillyMac:

Why was the timer doing possession arrow, instead of the scorer?

How was table set up?

I am asking about the table setup, as I've gotten into the habit of having the table set up the following way: shot clock operator, scoreboard/timer, official scorer/home book, & visitor book.

For what it's worth
 

I had an excellent table crew tonight for my BF/BJV games - no runs, no drips, no errors!

Adult on the clock, and two squared away yutes doing the books.

We had our "pre-game chat" and I told the official scorer to put away his Cell/PDA. He did. At the half of game two as we were going back on the floor he says, "last text ref, then it's going away." :cool:

It is so great to have a good table crew. Makes everything smooth.....

And yes, the players were all in numeric order in both books! ;)

Side Note - as my P and I are exiting the court toward our locker room, we go down our hallway and some of the counties finest police officers had two, apparently not so law-abiding teenagers against the wall and were frisking them pretty good. Lots of school staff on the scene. Good night for us - bad night for them!

Jack Of All Trades ...
 

Around these parts, most table crews consist of an official scorekeeper (home book), visiting scorekeeper (visiting book), and someone who operates the scoreboard (score, time, team fouls). The scoreboard operator also takes care of the possession arrow, which in many cases is actually built into the console that operates the scoreboard. No shot clock for high schools here in the Land of Steady Habits.

The scorer is "responsible for the posession arrow." That doesn't mean s/he has to be the only one who physically presses the button.

You're my hero. You figured out the art of crtrl+c and ctrl+v.

To answer your question- no the table crew isn't involved in my pregame with my partner. There's no need.

If I'm the R, I remind them about the running score and eye contact for the timer,stopping on a whistle and starting on a hand chop for the timer and my 24 second operators get more details.

Bob,

I was asking a bit of a stupid question, as I've seen the possession arrow physically taken care of by either the scorer or the the timer. In the JV & C-Squad games where I'm scorevoard/timer, I'm the one that physically handles the possession arrow. Then again, generally the official scorers in the JV & C-Squad games don't keep track of the AP either. Only once so far this year, during a JV or C-Squad game, have I seen a scorebook keep track of the possession arrow, that happened this last weekend. The scorebook keeping track, however, was the visitng book.

When I mean physically handle the possession arrow, I actually spin it, as it's a wooden arrow.

However, on the "Instructions to & duties of the scorers for basketball games", under equipment it states:

Scorebook, pencils, possession arrow & signaling device with sound different from that of the timer. The scorebook must be available for inspection at the table from 10 minutes prior to game time until the referee has approved the final score.

Crew experience!
 

When the table crew has worked together for any significant length of time a pre-game is not necessary. Everybody knows how to work with everybody else! Does any state have a rule that for regular season games the table personnel must be adults (Scorer,Shot Clock Operator-if applicable,and timer)? Mine does for the postseason but I was wondering if any did for regular season play.

Not here in NVA. We have a lot of very competent, teenagers do the books much of the time. I have had few issues - thankfully.

I just make sure they put away their cell phones and PDAs.

I'm getting used to you doing so

If you want to improve your table, this is a place to start. Just as with the "book score" vs. the "scoreboard", the "posession" in the book is what matters. If it's indicating the AP goes to team A, and the physical arrow is pointing to team B, and the difference can't be reconciled, we're going with A.

Our former public middle school league required the timer to be an adult. Since the old league had A and B games, the home team many times used a B team player to do the A game book and an A game player to keep the home book for the game.

Our present MS league has no such rules.

Basically falling on deaf ears when it comes to the sub-V scorebooks. As far as they're concerned, they only should keep track of score, fouls, & timeouts.

The season's halfway over, & finally the "X" in front of the scorer is being placed on the floor. BTW, it was thanks to Rookiedude that this started happening.

Concerning the scorebooks & the duties of, I am thinking of e-mailing the Principal of my alma mater, as my suggestions/rocommendations/concerns seem to be falling on deaf ears for game management from talking with the AD.