Help me work through a block/charge scenario.
 

This happened last night in 7th-8th grade boys rec game. One of the teams in question have an issue with the referee who made the call based on this incident and past ones. Their "formal complaint" is being dismissed by me, but I am trying to educate the coaches involved as to why the call was made. The referee in question is very solid, calls a lot of varsity games, but sometimes leaves himself open to these situations as he is a little too willing to try and give an explanation during the game.

Here is what I saw:

A1 catches a pass just inside the top of the key, pivots, drives hard to the basket. He does a jump stop, and makes an explosive move to the basket with his shoulder lowered. Think of a move where he is exploding out, and then up, in one motion from the jump stop.

B1 slides in late under A1, hard contact occurs, and both players go down hard. B1 was absolutely punished by A1's shoulder.

Based on what I have described, and assuming B1 did arrive late, what do you have and why?

A block, what else?

This is a block. B1 was late getting to the spot on the floor. I have seen many defenders punished by trying to take a charge but not getting LGP.

B1 slides in late under A1, hard contact occurs.

This is all I need to determine a block in this case, sounds like B1 took A1's landing or he didn't establish LGP which would result in a block as well. A1 is an airborn shooter if I'm picturing the play correctly in my mind. Yeah its going to be an ugly crash, but an easy call from an official's perspective based on what I mentioned. Of course a video like Clark posts would be the best so one could see the whole play, but that is probably not an option.

You would think that, right?
That is the call that was made.

Here is where I need help. The coach of B1 is going ape poop over the lowering of the shoulder by A1 on his move to the basket. I will say his move was hard, and aggressive, but to me it looked like he dips to absorb a blow moreso than looking to dish one out.

I need help explaining to the coach why the shoulder is the non-issue if B1 did not establish first.

Here are some comments from the "complaint" sent to me:
"I understand the nuances of the blocking foul on # 3. As I pointed out in my email, our player (#3) should have been charged with a blocking foul, as he clearly was not set prior to the contact. I was not lobbying for a "charge" either, because you can't have a charge and a blocking call symultaneously. My issue is the lowering of the shoulder and aggressive drive into the lane by the other team's player."

This is a little different than his first argument where he wanted the charge, now he is arguing that A1 should receive a foul after his player is called for the block, based on the aggressive nature of the move.

You have a pretty good picture of what happened. I would love to have video of this to discuss. My explanation to the assistant afte the game when he was asking me about it was that it was an ugly, hard play that resulted in a block, nothing more.
My thought as a coach was that B1 will learn not slide in late next time.

Explain to the coach that basketball is a contact sport and there is some aggressiveness involved.

But, when you say B1 arrived "late", do you mean he got to the spot AFTER A1 went airborne for his shot?

No. If the shooter is being aggressive toward the basket, there's no grounds for calling a foul on him in this situation.

If the shooter had been aggressive toward the defender, then we could talk about that. If the coach wants the charge called, tell him to get his player into LGP before the shot.

It sounds to me like he's asking for (or about) a double foul, one half of which is intentional or flagrant based on A1's actions.

Take a similar play where B1 gets to the spot late, but A1 punches B1 as part of the move.

It's unlikely that happened based just on the "lowering of the shoulder", but it's possible.

Since when is an aggressive drive into the lane, shoulder or no shoulder, a problem? It's only a problem when a defender has LGP and then it's a PC foul, not a block. This wasn't intentional or flagrant action by A, based on the OP.

There was no defender that had established LGP. Basketball is sometimes a contact/collision sport -- it isn't chess.

I think that is what he is pushing for here.

Talking in hypotheticals, what kind of action with the shoulder would you need to see to come up with an intentional/flagrant on A1?
What if he saw the defender stepping and lowered his shoulder just before contact?
I don't think that happened here, as this player dips his shoulder a lot on drives to the basket, even when not in traffic.

My assistant director was sitting with me, and his take was A1 dips to absorb contact. I personally think he does it out of instinct for no particular reason.

Tell the coach there is nothing in the rules that prevents a player from lowering his shoulder. It's often a good indicator, but nothing more. There's certainly nothing against being aggressive. In fact, the rules specifically allow a player to absorb contact; which may well be what was done here.

Basically, it all boils down to this, though.

You're not going to second guess the judgment call of one of your officials.

It's complete judgement, but there would have to be specific intent to cause contact with the shoulder - not in a way to absorb or brace for contact, but in a way to attempt to increase contact/punish the defender. In other words a clearly intentional act for the sake of delivering a blow.

The rules don't prohibit dipping the shoulder or aggressive moves as such.

Any part of the body might be used to cause excessive contact (intentional foul) or contact intended to injure (one type of flagrant foul). So those are what I'd look for -- not the shoulder specifically -- to call those types of foul.

A simple PC foul is more likely, as it's uncommon to cause excessive or flagrant contact with the shoulder.

Coach, you got anything on this?