Coming in on partners call
 

Can't remember game this weekend, might have been Pittsburgh/Xavier. A1 passes to A2 near C on sideline. It is clearly off of A2 as B1 has the C screened. C blows and gives ball to A, thinking B tipped it. Lead comes running over, gives info and C changes his call, B's ball.

It clearly was right call yet it was right in front of A coach who went ballistic.

I've had a two day discussion with ref friend, who along with two other refs on his trading floor, said they wouldn't come in to change it which I think is dead wrong, yet how far do we take this? This has been discussed in old threads and has some gray area to it. We've all seen from a far, a partners call that we just know is wrong and yet,at least I do, feel he saw something I didn't, even though I feel 100% about it. That said, the variables of the game,score, all come into play. I've told my friend in the past that I don't want him coming over, I'll live with my call. Of course I'm not doing a second round NCAA men's game on national television. Those that saw the play will probably agree the call needed to be changed as it was clearly obvious.

Obviously, it's been pregamed that if non-calling official is coming over, there is no doubt.

Curious on thoughts.

In this particular situation is was probably pre-gamed or assumed. All 3 officials work extensive SEC schedules so they are familar with each other.

You don't come in to change the call. You come in to give your partner your info as to what you saw. Then it's up to the original caller to decide what to do. If he is sure he had the call right, he'll say "thanks but no thanks". If he has doubt, he'll go with you. I remember that play and that's just about what happened imo.

OOB calls aren't judgment calls like fouls. We gotta try to get every single one of those calls right. And in a tournament like this, missing a key OOB call as an official could mean watching the next round of games on tv.

That is one call that absolutely has to be pre-gamed as to helping each other out.

Btw, as for the coach going ballistic, he had to. I think that it's some kinda prerequisite in the coach's manual.:)

I recall the play quite well. There was 15.9 seconds left in the game. Xavier was inbounding following a 3pt goal by Pitt and leading 69-66. The pass was made towards the Pitt bench and was tipped by the Pitt defender. It went OOB on the sideline into the Pitt bench. The C, Antonio Petty, came in from near the end of the scorer's table with a strong signal in favor of Pitt. John Cahill then came over from the Trail position on the end line and spoke with Petty, who changed his call and pointed the other way.

Cahill got the call right, and in my opinion it will cause him to advance to next weekend.

There was another game on Sunday where the exact opposite happened. Call was made, partner ran in and gave info, calling official (I think it was the T) hit his whistle and pointed again - the same direction he had pointed before.

All you can do is provide information. If partner wants to change call, that's up to him/her. My personal take on this is that I do not go running in, tooting my whistle 5 or 6 times. I tell my partners in pregame that if I have info for them, I will take a step or two towards them and make eye contact. If they then ask me, I will go in and give the info. If they don't want my info, they either shake their head at me or don't make eye contact. And away we go...

I think if you have 100% knowledge, no question, absolute knowledge, you have to go to your partner and get the call right.

If you have anything less than the above, let him have it.

Brain fart regarding changing call wording...........of course:o

I like that Rock.

You need to fix so much in your scenario.
If you are considering the inbounding side to be Team A, by your labeling, then the bench and coach who was complaining was B.
The pass was clearly tipped by B1, and A2 had the C screened.
The C initially gave the ball to Team B, thinking that A2 tipped it or that no one had touched the pass.
It was the TRAIL who came over and informed the C that he needed to change his call, and he then awarded the ball to Team A.

Exactly.

No one will remember that the C called one way only to have the T provide info to get it right....and they did get it right. The replays clearly showed that they got it right.

If they didn't get it right and Pitt made a 3 pointer to tie and eventually won, it may have become the most talked about call of the weekend....it wasn't even a close call, the C was just not in the right spot to see it (and was probably in as good of a spot as they could have been...closer wouldn't have improved the angle).


Great teamwork.

You're probably correct, I don't recall particulars. I'd be bad identifying someone in a police lineup.

So, in keeping with the spirit of the thread, I'll change my call.

Interesting discussion- I attended a D1 game worked by a friend of mine who has been working with younger (less experienced) HS officials when the same situation occurred. He was T and L had an OOB call. T didn't hit the whistle at all, just quickly ran to L to say he had 100% knowledge that ball should go the other way. L nodded his head, T went back to his position and L stayed with his call.

What my friend has been preaching to us was to 1- get the call right 2- in this situation, don't give the whistle a workout, just come in to your partner and tell him/her you have 100% knowledge that the call should go the other way and back off and let partner change his mind or not and 3- we are not coming in to partner unless you are 100% sure.

This leads to #4- if partner chooses to stay with his call, well, then, that's all you can do and your *** is covered if your cadet supervisor, HS assignor, college assignor or NCAA tourney observer is watching intently.... I wonder what points are given to the official who comes in with definite knowledge and is refused and the play was wrong... does he advance over the the partner who stays with his call? (I'm sure that's not the only criteria, but it might have a lot to say about the overall performance evaluation, no?)

Z

I disagree. We pregame it, but if you come in on me, we ARE changing the call. We're not going to debate it, we aren't going to ask "did you see the whole play" or some other nonsense, we are simply changing the call. Now, whoever made the original call is the one who is going to change it by blowing their whistle, pointing a different direction, and verbally indicating the color jersey who now gets the ball. DO NOT come in with the change -- the calling official will make the change. And he WILL make the change. After that, like it or not, he deals with the coaches but the other official should assist in that if possible.

There's no rational alternative. What's the point of going in if not to get the call correct? You know from pregame that you aren't (or I'm not) coming in unless we are 110% sure we are correct. This "give him information" stuff doesn't work. What information? "The ball went off red; its white's ball." Anything short of that, we aren't coming in because we are going to trust that our partner got it right -- that he might have seen something we didn't. Its unreasonable for you to come to me with 110% correct information and for me to tell you "I got this" or to MYOB.

This is easier than a lot of people make it out to be, but you MUST pregame this. Plus, you association needs to get an understanding of how to handle this.

No. There are a number of possibilities where each official not being able to see the entire play....for example, double tips in different areas of the court...each official sees one and only one. Get to gether, share information, get it right.

Iow one official's opinion will always take precedence over his partner(s), no matter what. No discussion at all about a double tip, etc? And you think that's rational?

You must have a pile of very insecure officials in your association; people not very confident in their own ability.

Good luck with that. It's tied with the stoopidest local mechanic that I've ever read about. Not only that, that procedure also directly contradicts NFHS rule 2-6.

You're always a team out there.

As I recall......
 

The particular angle we had from our livingrooms was also very good as we saw it pretty much from the same angle as Cahill. I thought the call was pretty obvious from his angle and he did a good job bringing it to Petty's attention.

One for the good guys!

Really? Because (a) I want my partner coming in if s/he has something different and (b) I'm giving the information whether my partner wants it or not.

It's up to the calling official to change. And, I've been in both positions when calls weren't changed (because the calling official had something later, or for game management).

There are times an official is 110% sure he's correct and I'm 110% sure he's wrong.

Earlier this season, I had a double tip near the sideline and I made the call. Partner comes over with a "tweet, tweet" and asks me if I saw the tip. I said, "yes, did you see the second tip after?" -- he didn't and that was the end of the discussion. We stayed with my call.

When two people see the same play, who's to say who saw the right version of it? Now, there are plays where a partner on an endline makes a call and as soon as I come in he knows he kicked it and changes his call. One time this season, 3-person, I came in to a partner and didn't even get a word out of my mouth before he changed his call.

There are many variables on my position, and it's all not black and white. I had a partner come in twice this season and I was fine with it. Generally, if it's bang, bang OB in front of me, say as lead, I don't want my trail, double whistling, running in. As I mentioned in a previous post, as non-calling official I tend to give partner benefit of the doubt that he may have seen something I didn't.
I think you'll agree, especially at HS varsity level when you may have new partners you haven't worked with the trust level isn't as solid as your regular crew. A guy I regularly work with I trust explicitly. If he's coming over, I missed it.

So, to sum up your question of "really?" No, not really there are variables.

Not sure what you meant by game management?

My guess would be A1 and B1 going for a rebound, A1 fouls B1 while attempting to secure the rebound, then the ball is hit off of B1, and the official (L) rather than calling the foul simply gives the OOB ball to B1.

Then T comes sailing in to tell L that the ball really went off of B1, and the L sticks with his call, because he knew that already.

If the assigner trusts the official enough to put him / her on the game, then I trust him/her enough to listen when s/he comes over on an OOB call.

This is contradictory and impossible. While I know what you think you are saying, my definition of 110% sure is that there is no way you are wrong. You saw the entire thing -- the ball hit the arm, then the floor with clearly nothing in between and your partner was probably blocked out.

But even if you are correct, I contend it is better to change the call and be wrong than it is to stay with a wrong call when someone came in. In the former, I can always say something like, "coach, I came in based on what I saw that I was sure about but unfortunately missed a small important detail." In other words, "coach, we missed it, after making a big effort to get it right." In the latter, you are basically left with saying something to the effect of, "coach, I decided to stay with a wrong call even though he had it correct and tried to convince me." In other words, "my ego is more important than getting the call right." Like it or not, that's exactly what it says when you don't change a call when your partner comes in.

Even when that isn't the case, what do you tell a coach who asks you why your partner didn't change the call that you went in on him to correct? Your answer will be something like, "coach, he said he saw something I didn't see and I agreed, so we left it there." Then, the coach will say something like, "then, why in the hell did you go in on him in the first place if not to correct it, if you didn't have all the facts yourself?" At this point, the coach is reasonable in wondering if either one of us know what's going on.

On the other hand, you can always tell the coach that we change calls when our partners come in because our partners never come in unless they are 110% sure. End of discussion.

Either way, concerning your point, I am not coming in on you (and likewise, per our pregame) unless there is NO WAY I am wrong.

Now that I think about it, this has a bit of game theory ring to it! Any Economics gurus out there?

It is only contradictory and impossible if you think that there is no chance you can be 110% sure of being right while empirical evidence (such as video) proves that you are completely wrong. And that's not possible. We all make mistakes.

As for the rest of your post, you act like we owe detailed explanations to coaches. They can think what they like. In the meantime, we've already put the ball back in play and they'd better go back to coaching. I'd rather get the call right, regardless of what they think of me.

The "game management" situation happened to me earlier this year. I'm T, rebound after a missed shot high in the air, goes off of white. Partner, L, points white ball. I hit the whistle once -- go to her -- told her what I saw, and she told me she passed on a black foul and was thus going to stay with white ball. Nothing more for me to do at that point other than go calm down black's coach. (All I told black's coach was that we saw it differently and the L was staying w/ her call. Coach accepted it ----- luckily).

Two other points: (1) white the Cahill "information giving," while correct and the absolute right thing for the game, it didn't "look" too good because of how strong the C gave the original OOB call. Of course, it would have "looked" even worse had Cahill not come in. (2) I'm a Pitt fan living out west -- it was a horrible call by Cahill and Pitt got jobbed. :p :D

1) Change the "we" to "I". You're the one responsible for screwing up the call, not your partner(s). If you want to be the one to change a correct call, you had better be be ready to take the sole blame.

2) That's ridiculous. No real official would ever dream of making a nonsensical statement like that to any coach. Or at least I hope that they wouldn't.


Let the official who is responsible for making the call make the call. It's only been that way...oh...forever....and for very good reasons. If we can't trust each other, who can we trust? If a coach does ask what the conference was about(and he'll have to ask because if the conference was done properly...quietly and with no signals given...he won't really be sure what you were discussing), you simply say "We were just making sure we got the play right". End of discussion.

Disagree completely with your association's local mechanic.

Just a suggestion...take it fwiw.

No need to say that you "saw it differently". Just say something neutral like "I checked to make sure we both were on the same page". You never want to leave the impression that you disagreed with one of your partner(s) calls.

You were lucky that the coach accepted that. A lot of coaches wouldn't as soon as they found out that you disagreed with your partner's call.

+1...solid, veteran move imo.

EXACTLY!!! Short and simple. Why would a non-calling official feel the need to say anything more?

This has to stop. The covering official is missing two calls on this play--a foul and an OOB decision. That is unacceptable.
With every game being on video today, people who officiate in this manner better change and quickly. There is no way to defend such.

Either call the foul or award the ball to the team which didn't touch it last.

I will stop when one of two things happens:
1. Those who control assignments in my area no longer expect it.
2. I become one of those people mentioned in #1.

Until then, I'll be a coward.