reffing illegal use hands vs a legal steal

[Pantherdreams]

So lets be clear:

Reaching in/poking is not a foul. Contact the impedes the opponent or causes clear and immediate advantage/disadvantage is.

I work with a lot of guys who call the reaching and any contact at all who when we discuss it talk about game management, "trying to clean it up early", not wanting behaviour to escalate.

All that seems to get is a game with more fouls or less defense.

My preference is to let it go until I can see that the hands in or on and stopping the ball handler from moving freely or the ball comes loose as a result of the contact.

The one I struggle with is weak ballhandlers under physical pressure, where I feel like I'm bailing out the offense if I call contact when they were loosing the ball anyway. On the other hand if I let it go the defense just gets increasiningly aggressive smelling blood in the water.

[rsl]

Originally Posted by Pantherdreams

All that seems to get is a game with more fouls or less defense.

This is my experience as well, and in fact I had an evaluator get after me for calling a hand check early in the game because the player didn't lose the ball. I thought I was "cleaning up".

These are all good comments, especially RBSQ. I was also hoping for some advice for seeing the contact more clearly. It seems that the "poke" is often out of view and it is hard to determine if there was illegal contact. Of course, the coach always thinks there is/isn't contact depending on his point of view.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by rsl

...I was also hoping for some advice for seeing the contact more clearly. It seems that the "poke" is often out of view and it is hard to determine if there was illegal contact. Of course, the coach always thinks there is/isn't contact depending on his point of view.

Would this help: time to write on the chalkboard!?

[Mark Padgett]

Originally Posted by Pantherdreams

not wanting behaviour to escalate.

Are you up in Canada, or perhaps Great Britain? Please don't tell me you're in France!

[Pantherdreams]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

Are you up in Canada, or perhaps Great Britain? Please don't tell me you're in France!

Ohhhh CANADA . . . .

We invent the game then put it 574th on our depth chart of important sports.

[Welpe]

Originally Posted by Pantherdreams

We invent the game then put it 574th on our depth chart of important sports.

Well Naismith was Canadian born but later became an American and the game was invented in America. Go halfsies on it?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Pantherdreams

So lets be clear:

Reaching in/poking is not a foul. Contact the impedes the opponent or causes clear and immediate advantage/disadvantage is.

I work with a lot of guys who call the reaching and any contact at all who when we discuss it talk about game management, "trying to clean it up early", not wanting behaviour to escalate.

All that seems to get is a game with more fouls or less defense.

My preference is to let it go until I can see that the hands in or on and stopping the ball handler from moving freely or the ball comes loose as a result of the contact.

The one I struggle with is weak ballhandlers under physical pressure, where I feel like I'm bailing out the offense if I call contact when they were loosing the ball anyway. On the other hand if I let it go the defense just gets increasiningly aggressive smelling blood in the water.

The thing with this is, weaker ball handlers can handle less contact that might be incidental with stronger players.