So if the person was only a 55% shooter, you stick with the no-call?

Yeah, 'cause that's what he said.

The L was on the baseline on ballside.

In my opinion, the L should not be at the baseline and should be about 2 feet away from the deepest 3pt threat on his side. With 5 seconds left, a ball going out of bounds on the baseline is not as important as finding your closest competitive matchup for an obvious 3pt shot attempt to tie the game.

When I am two feet away from something, I have trouble being able to officiate it.

Exactly.

The baseline is a perfect spot to get this foul. In 2-person and in NCAAW, the L has this shot in a halfcourt set, so why can't this official get this?

I think any closer to the play than the baseline and the official's too close. JMO.

I understand what you are saying. In this case, I believe the L was officiating wide on the baseline and got caught not seeing the arm contact on the opposite side of the shooter's body. By being on the baseline, he had a bad angle at the play because he was straight-lined. Positioning himself before the play started is key in this situation.

Being closer (say between the FT line and the baseline) along the key and the L would have had a great angle at the play.

+1

If the ball is in the frontcourt, there is no reason for the L to be anywhere but the endline for many reason, not the least of which is that being right next to a play is rarely the best place to be to officiate it.

You wanted the L standing on the court near the lane?

I'm a proponent of "go where you have to to officiate the play" but there are a LOT better places to officiate a potential 3-point shot than in the lane. :confused:

In the conference that I work, our supervisor says get to the best angle to see the play on a last second shot. The L has to realize that a 3pt shot is the only play that the black team is going to make. He has to know where the rest of the crew is and players in his area. He does no good by just standing on the baseline when he sees a player on the wing in the 3pt area; he ended up being straight-lined on the shot. There were no other players in his area except the shooter and 2 defenders. If he positioned himself along the key below the FT line, I believe he would have had a better look at the play.

I think he should've seen the arm getting hooked regardless of where he stood on the endline. I don't think this is really a positioning discussion or issue -- rather it's a judgment or cojones discussion or issue.

Maybe I'm not envisioning this play right, but I see no way being on the court, halfway up a lane line, is the right place to officiate a try on the wing beyond the 3-point line. If anything, that would be the place most likely to get straight-lined.

But, that's just me. Seems to me that the best place for L to be heading into the play as you describe it is very wide on the endline. Like in the corner.

...and my point is that to make a statement that the REFEREES decided the game with ONE CALL is simply folly. Assuming the shooter was a 72% shooter, there was slightly better than a 1/6 chance the shooting team would have ended up winning the game. In other words, there would have been roughly an 82% chance that the no call did NOT alter the outcome of the game. Had the shooter been a 60% shooter, the odds that the official's no call actually altered the winner would be at under 11%.

Put another way, there was an 82 - 89+% chance that this one call had NO EFFECT on the winning team.

My only point is to illustrate that it is unfair to take a play that represents 1/1920ths of the game (one second) and place 100% of the result of the entire game on this one play.

That said, in looking at the long video (the last 2 minutes of the game), it appears as though the Lead has him arm raised (with a fist???) as he is moving from the endline along the sideline. He did not immediately sprint off of the floor. Kind of strange.

Well, 72% is pretty close to 67%, so I guess the guy would've made 2 out of 3. Not enough to force OT. Nothing more to see here.

And without the foul, the kid had a zero percent chance.

I gotta say, I find this entire post and this line of thinking quite strange.

You're not the only one who envisioned it that way. I was thinking the exact same thing.