First scrimmage of the season

[Scrapper1]

Did my first scrimmage of the season. Felt pretty good physically. Worked with a couple really good guys. I called an elbow violation, a 3-second violation, at least one illegal screen, and oh yeah, we had a bench-clearing dust-up.

Kid has had a tough second half, team wasn't doing well. He gets stripped going to the basket and he's mad. The ball is loose on the floor and he just jumps on an opponent, not going for the ball. My partner at Lead has the foul and then they start wrestling for the ball, of course. I get in there trying to calm it down and it's MF this and FU that (from the players, not me ). And literally every player from both benches came out to the scrum.

After restoring order, we got the coaches together and said that since it's essentially a practice, we weren't going to toss anybody, but in a real game, EVERYBODY would be gone. That got their attention REAL fast. We told them anything even close to this again, and the scrimmage is over.

The rest went very smoothly, thankfully. It was good to get back out there!

[GoodwillRef]

I also had my first scrimmage this past saturday...3 hours and 20 minutes of fun. It was a NCAAW D1 scrimmage and they just kept putting time on the clock again and again...one member of the crew had to catch a plane and left early.

[Raymond]

Had my 4th and final college scrimmage yesterday. We must have had at least 10 illegal screens calls plus one elbow (non-flagrant) to the head by an offensive player.

Probably will get 2 HS scrimmages in the last 10 days of November.

[Judtech]

Had to laugh at my scrimmage saturday. If memory serves, and I am trying to forget, we had 40 fouls, in the FIRST HALF. V was in the bonus at the 15:30 mark and the double bonus at the 13:40 mark. H would just not keep their hands of the ball handler. And after every call the coach just kept telling his players "Good D. The officials will grow to appreciate the good D". One of his players, and eventually the coach, asked us to loosen up our calls since "This is just a scrimmage and we want to let the girls play." My response was to say, Don't you want your girls to get used to what is going to be called when the games are 'real'. He said yes,, and I said that is what we are doing!! Finally, late in the 1st half, one of the parents yelled "Keep your hands off the ball handler. The refs are just going to call it every time you put your hands on them". Too funny! Much better 2nd half!

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

I called a 3-second violation.

That gets called in a college game?

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

... a 3-second violation, ...

Originally Posted by BillyMac

That gets called in a college game?

It was on the preseason video. Several examples were shown.

[Robert E. Harrison]

When a player jumps upon another player on the floor. Do we call a foul or determine if he/she is going for the ball and consider it incidental contact? I know when two players have similar advantageous positions going for the ball the contact can be violent and not a foul.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

It was on the preseason video. Several examples were shown.

And we've had one in each of my college scrimmages so far.

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by Robert E. Harrison

When a player jumps upon another player on the floor. Do we call a foul or determine if he/she is going for the ball and consider it incidental contact? I know when two players have similar advantageous positions going for the ball the contact can be violent and not a foul.

Jumping ON another player? That can't be incidental: you can't go through another player to get to the ball.

[tref]

Originally Posted by mbyron

Jumping ON another player? That can't be incidental: you can't go through another player to get to the ball.

Wasnt that a POE in HS last year?

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by tref

Wasnt that a POE in HS last year?

It's been a POE and a case play over the years. The directive has always been to call a foul if a player jumps on top of an opposing player on the floor in an attempt to tie up the ball.

[Scrapper1]

Originally Posted by Robert E. Harrison

When a player jumps upon another player on the floor. Do we call a foul or determine if he/she is going for the ball and consider it incidental contact? I know when two players have similar advantageous positions going for the ball the contact can be violent and not a foul.

Robert, you are correct that if the players are in equally advantageous positions then contact while attempting to gain control of the ball is normally considered incidental. (Unless, obviously, one of them extends an arm or leg to push, hold, etc.)

But if one guy is jumping ON another player, you have to ask yourself whether they really did have equally advantageous positions. To jump onto another player, you'd have to start out behind that player, wouldn't you? You'd have to start farther away from the ball than the other player. That means that they are NOT in equally advantageous positions before the contact; and that means that the contact cannot be considered incidental.

And, as others have pointed out, there have been POEs and case plays to address this situation as well.