reffing illegal use hands vs a legal steal
 

Ok, I know there is no such thing as a "reaching" foul, but when a dribbler challenges a defender and the defender pokes at the ball, the defender can easily commit either an illegal use of hands foul or a blocking foul. When reffing this kind of contact, what do we watch for? How do you judge between a legal steal and a foul?

I am looking for some guidelines similar to the ones we have for block/charge. where we check for LGP, referee the defense, make sure the defender is vertical, and look for contact on the torso.

I know to move so that I can see between the players, but with the dribbler often changing direction quickly it is easy to get straight-lined. Then, when the defender suddenly knocks the ball loose, it is hard to tell if he hit more than ball. Especially with "hand is part of the ball" rule, 4-24-2.


Any pointers?

Are you familiar with RSBQ?

Contact that puts the ball-handler at a disadvantage would be a good starting point.

I agree with OP and would really like to hear more guidance. I have particular difficulty after the initial poke-away. Coaches love to argue their player is still dribbling when in fact it could be a free ball (or on its way to being one).

One thing not to do is call a foul when you don't see any contact.

And I don't see the relevence of the bolded statement above. A loose ball doesn't give a player carte blanche to foul another player.

Right. I guess what I was getting at is letting more contact go if two players without possession of the ball are going after it (i.e. incidental when the ball is suddenly 'free' after a poke-away), as opposed to, say, a defender making contact with a dribbler who is allegedly still 'with possession.'

Still doesn't matter
 

If it's incidental conatct and no one gains an advantage, let it go.

But, if the contact causes an advantage/disadvantage to one of the players? TWEET!

I actually call more fouls in the scramble for loose balls than I call on actual "poke aways". Had one last night in which B1 poked the ball away cleanly but in the ensuing scramble for the loose ball he grabbed A1's arm.

What may be a better question is how much hand-checking and body-bumping are you allowing? If you clean that up you will get less flack on the incidental contact that may occur when a ball-handler is stripped of the ball.

4-27-2 Incidental Contact

Incidental contact is contact with an opponent which is permitted and which does not constitute a foul:

Art. 2...Contact, which may result when opponents are in equally favorable positions to perform normal defensive or offensive moments, should not be considred illegal, even tough the contact may be serverse.

That is the rule I would use to call/no call a call where the ball is loose.

The fact that the ball is loose does not make it any more likely that opponents are in equally favorable positions.

Good points. Probably too much, even though I like to think I'm pretty consistent throughout a game with it. I'm going to work on this.

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.

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.:)

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

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