Check your balls

[M&M Guy]

Well, have you ever had the feeling before a game something wasn't quite right? Have you ever started a game with the wrong size ball?

Nope, not me. Yet.

But, it does happen, even to some of the best in the country. Illinois and Oakland played for 7 minutes before the officials discovered they were playing with a women's ball. Coach Weber said in the post-game that some of his players had come up to him right away and said something seemed wrong, but he told them to just shut up and shoot better. Of course, the Oakland coach said he wanted to continue playing with it, since his team was leading at the time.

[truerookie]

Oh ok, I thought the other balls check...

[APG]

You would think that the official tossing the jump ball would notice. I can instantly tell if the wrong size ball is being used whenever I get my practice tosses in before the game. And even when I'm not the tossing official, during any sort of throw-in, if I can palm the ball easier or bounce pass the ball with a little bit more on it, that usually gets my attention.

Funny that the winning coach wanted to continue with the women's ball!

[BLydic]

Something I do every game .... now. Last year JUCO womens, early Saturday afternoon game. Played for about 12 minutes before one of us decided to look at the ball. Players were all saying how they thought something wasn't quite right.

[JRutledge]

If you are not used to the woman's ball in your hands (insert jokes now please), then you can easily sometimes not notice the difference off the bat. I would say a couple of other things but I am afraid I would get banned if I kept talking about balls.

Peace

[zm1283]

I did it one time during a JH girls game several years ago. We started with a men's ball for probably half of the first quarter. No one noticed because everything they shot was going in, which is unusual for JH girls. We figure it out during a stop in play at some point and switched.

I make sure I check now. I'm more likely to mess up and use a men's ball during a women's game than use a smaller ball for the men's game.

[Welpe]

Thanks for the reminder, I'm sure it will happen this year now.

I'm just going to admire the title of this thread for a while...maybe we need to make this the second rule of officiating?

[BillyMac]

Used a girls ball for the first half of a Catholic middle school boys game, first game of a boys/girls doubleheader, last year. I was the umpire. Site director brought it to our attention at halftime when he couldn't find the girls game ball.

[BBrules]

They ought to go back to one size. Bunch of wussies.

[Nevadaref]

Suspend them all for two weeks.
Checking the game ball is a simple duty.
The only reason for not doing it properly is laziness.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

Suspend them all for two weeks.
Checking the game ball is a simple duty.
The only reason for not doing it properly is laziness.

How about also issuing a "T" for using illegal equipment to any player who touched the ball?

Rules rulz!

[ranjo]

Had a D1 official who would run a camp for the local board every summer. One of his tricks was to insert a womens ball into a game at halftime and see how long it would be before anyone noticed it.

From that time on, I have always paid attention to what ball was provided to play with at the start of each half.