We can agree to disagree here.

I understand what you are saying and maybe I'm not being clear. There are lots of these situations where I would and have called excessive just not if contact is in course of a regular sort of play on the ball that ends up badly because it was a breakaway.

If the offense goes to the rim hard and defense takes a charge, most times I'm no calling the offensive player for an intentional. Despite the fact they may not have slowed up, tried to avoid it and knowing both players hit the floor hard I still don't think its intentional. Its not excessive, just a tough basketball play. By that same token a defender leaving their feet trying to make a play to stop a shot that results in a foul in the normal course of play (even knowing it could be ugly) and still making the tough play. Play on.

Again if they are playing the body and not the ball or clearly going for a foul to bust the play up then I can move onto excessive when they spill everywhere. If you get tighter then that every offensive player in every game should go to the rim hard and layout as much as possible so that any arm contact at all drives them to floor and can be construed as dangerous.

It is a judgement call though and every situation is unique.

I don't think we're that far apart. It's not that I'm going to rule normal arm contact intentional just because the shooter lands on his arse. That said, there are times when the landing can help determine just how hard the contact was, and the result isn't always irrelevant. I'm talking about a hard rake across the arms that knocks a player into the following week. Normally, however, it's not solely arm to arm contact involved here. Typically, body contact is required for this sort of foul.

Two thoughts:

1. Game control. If the contact is significant to warrant consideration for excessive contact and it "turns up the heat" unnecessarily, if there's no good reason for it, if the outcome is already decided, if there's a history going on...I'm calling it intentional to send a clear message.

2. We call lots of fouls where there is clean contact with the ball. The ball is not the only consideration. And if the defender can't make that clean play on the ball without creating excessive contact...it should be called.

Sounds as if the OP was at a college camp. Hence, the evaluator is likely far more familiar with NCAA directives than those of the NFHS.

A couple of years ago the NCAA put an emphasis on protecting airborne players, especially those going up for dunks and lay-ups. The instruction was basically to deem more of the plays in which these players were fouled to be intentional or flagrant.

It seems that this is the perspective from which the evaluator is speaking.

Did you ask the Center official for information? A lot of intentional fouls occur on fastbreak plays off of turnovers. In my opinion, the Center will have the best look on whether an upgrade to intentional or flagrant is warranted.

Sometimes, we can have intentional fouls that are legitimate plays on the ball based on excessive contact. If the observer jumped you on this, I would at least consider the merits of what they said.

Jmo but I think that you've got a better chance of getting jumped on by an observer for not making a definitive call as to whether the foul was intentional or not if it was your job to make that decision. That's one judgment that every calling official has to make by himself imo. You can't call a game by committee.

Rock, Paper, Scissors ???
 

What? Are you saying that you can't just stop the game and conduct a poll?

And the larger the crowd, the larger the sample size and the more accurate the outcome!

Not true, the self-selection involved in the make up of the crowd means it's not a random sampling; your margin of error would be huge no matter how big your sample.

I am not a polling guru (and like everyone hated statistics). I was just thinking if you sample EVERYONE, than you would have an accurate reprentation of the opinion of those in attendance. But then I remembered all of these other big words that make me stand corrected in the presence of your statistical sampling knowledge!!!

That's the general position on the NCAA men's side, yet from what I've seen at camps the NCAA women's side is teaching to come together and talk about it before signaling an intentional foul.

I will express no personal opinion on this whatsoever. I'm merely relaying the information.

What's your personal opinion?

You already know mine.

To clarify some, this is USUALLY done in one of two cases. The first being that a non calling official has a good look at something that the calling official did not see for various reasons. Or the calling official has a suspicion that there was more involved than what they saw and want to get a 'second opinion' prior to reporting the foul.
The rationale given 2 explain that makes some sense. The first being it is better/easier to 'upgrade' a foul than to 'downgrade' a foul. Similar to you cant "uneject' someone. Secondly, it gives the perception that the crew is working together, that eyes were on the play and the calling official has the information they need to come to a proper decision about 'upgrading'. Further, the process is not dissimilar to an official providing additional information about an OB. Official comes in, provides info to calling official, calling official then decides whether or not to change call.
I like it, but thenagain, I am a big fan of the officiating crew having as much information as they can get. This type of foul, like some tech's IMO, is rare enough that having these quick consults warrant the 'one off' type situation being espoused.

The drawback is that it gives the impression that all eyes were on the same players.

Personally, I think it looks better if the X is given immediately rather than after discussion; but maybe that's just me.

I can "see" that. :rolleyes: (ok, it was RIGHT there!)
The other side, at least IME is that these types of fouls often come with a double whistle anyways. If one official goes X and another goes with a fist, who takes priority? If you both come out with fists, quick 5 second huddle, and then come out with the X some would say is 'perceived' better. If there is only one whistle, I can see where the "quick X" would be best.
I am not sure there is a perfect solution to the problem, but IMO, it is just a matter of taste and direction.