Early Exit

[Mark Padgett]

Just two weeks ago, I had a 7th grade boy in a rec game foul out about five minutes into the game. After the game, I asked his coach (who I've known for quite a few years) why he left the kid in the game under those conditions. He said the kid just will not listen to instruction on how to play proper defensive position so he wants the kid to learn what the consequences are if he doesn't try to change his habits.

OK - that made a lot of sense.

[grunewar]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

Just two weeks ago, I had a 7th grade boy in a rec game foul out about five minutes into the game.

Now why did I know Padgett would one up me?

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

You should have enough game awareness to not be surprised by this. You should have an idea when a player has three or four fouls, especially prior to the 4th quarter.

Agree. My game awareness was pretty good as this was a game where one team was over-matched (score was 33-8 at half time) and W (home) called for many more fouls than the B (visitors). I knew W15, W50, and W44 had several fouls this early in the game as we had just entered the one and one. It still caught me off guard a bit.

[Freddy]

Girls' JV last Thursday, visiting player had three fouls with 6:45 left in the first quarter. That's three fouls in 1:15 minutes.
She played sparingly enough so that she never picked up numbers four or five.

[Texas Aggie]

Anyone else have a player amass fouls so quickly?

Yeah -- ME! I fouled out (or maybe I was kicked out) about halfway through the second quarter in a HS game once. I didn't even start that year!

We had a rival that, well, played pretty dirty on their home court. They were always on their best behavior when they played at our house, but for some reason, we had problems there. Obviously, it wasn't ALL them as much as I'd like to think it was, since we never backed down and looking back now, probably looked for an excuse to get rough as we weren't that great a team. At any rate, I was sort of the designated enforcer and picked up a few fouls. My last one was particularly rough, so I was gone. I knew I had a bunch -- don't know if it was 4 or 5 and the 4th was flagrant, or what. The ref turned to me and said, "you're out of the game, son." I said, "OK," and sat down. We won, and had a police escort out of there. That wasn't the only time that year something like that happened on their court.

Needless to say, I'd never tolerate me -- at least not in that game!!

[Mark Padgett]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

At any rate, I was sort of the designated enforcer

Was this you?

[Anchor]

Several years ago a really good 4A girls team in our area had a girl playing who was a major D1 prospect (eventually played for NC State, I think). On one particular game during a holiday tourney there were several colleges present evidently giving her a look see.

She went crazy. 1st foul seconds into the game. 2nd foul less than a minute later. 3rd foul by the 3 minute mark. I was the one in the position to call all 3 and there was no way to either ignore the contact or act in "game management" mode--they were obvious and they were hers. Coach took her out briefly to talk to her and get her settled down, then put her back in.

Just seconds before the end of the quarter I was trail table side, near the half line, and the visiting team had the ball just over the line. For whatever reason this girl made a running leap to defend a pass, jumped at the ball holder, missed the pass, and pile-drove the player out of bounds into the table.

In the moment it took me to think "I've got to call this foul and it will be her 4th and the 1st quarter is not even done" my partner came over from center and made the call. At the break he said he knew it would look bad for me to call all 4, so he took it. Don't know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I never worried about him tossing me under the bus.

End of story, she went out for the rest of the half, started the second half, and fouled out (my call) in the first 2 minutes. Not her best effort. She really was a good player who had a very bad effort that night.