uh oh....BLARGE!!!!
 

3-whistle....

I'm T, steal, we're going the other way, i'm hustling down to new L...

1-on-1 break at foul line, collision, dribbler pushes off with forearm. I'm new L, even with the play, see it perfectly clear, tweet...'offensive foul'!! Same time I tweet, I hear my trail tweet...comes in hard yelling "block! block!"

oh crap! Now we've got a blarge!! We administer and move on...

at halftime, the trail on that play says, 'i thought we discussed in pregame that if it starts in your area, you have it all the way to the basket?'...

I said, 'yeah, but that's in a normal frontcourt setting, right? This was a fastbreak, 1-on-1 going to the basket, contact at foul line as I'm running even with the play on the break.'

maybe I mis-interpreted in pre-game. Thoughts???

Moral of the story, please discuss THIS specific situation in pregame so it doesn't happen to YOU!!!! :eek:

Absolutely agree to pre-game it and as I have been told many times IN THAT pre-game, hold your fist high and don't make any preliminaries too early to avoid such a mess. Make eye contact with your partner and one of you takes it - not both (obviously).

How far away was the T? Might have been a hard sell from there?

On the other hand, sometimes $h!t happens. :(

i'm not sure how far away he was. again, it was a 1-on-1 fast break, so i wasn't looking back too much as I was running even with the 1-on-1 break matchup. I assumed (ooops) that it was my primiary as lead on break. ugh.

All I can say is as the new trail, I've got the players following the break, not the break away.

I think someone was ball watching.

That's the bottom line on blarges, no matter the accompanying rhetoric.

:confused: So, if the steal happened in the lead's area, that lead official (as new trail) has it all the way to the basket? Why do you bother to have three officials on the court? ;)

Ciao

odd 1-on-1 fast break starting in the L area...was there no one else on the court?

This new trail doesn't really understand 3-person mechanics, does he?

In transition, he's probably still in the backcourt. He thinks he's in better position to make a call from there than the official that's in much better position?

Quite frankly, if there's a double whistle in this situation, I'd expect it to be by the C/L. Unless the contact is from behind and the L misses it, I wouldn't expect the T to get involved.

No way I'm making this call from T. At best, I've made it to the division line and will have a half dozen players between me and the call.
At worst (and more likely), I've made it to the division line and there are half a dozen players behind me (not good as the T).
Somewhere in the middle (and most likely), I'm hanging back watching the rest of the players and have barely made it to the FT line extended.

Plus add into the equation that if the Lead somehow misses the play there is also a Center official who can have a crack at it.

Snaqs:

Mark, Woody, and I welcome you as our newest member of the "Ye Olde Geezers Club". :D

MTD, Sr.

LOL, I see no shame in getting to the division line when there's a quick steal and the player gets fouled in transition at the FT line.

Matter of fact, I'm guessing in reality we would all be back a few steps further. With 2 officials up there, I'm able to stay back a step or two and watch the stragglers in the backcourt.

Yeah. That's the ticket. I'm WATCHING stragglers. I'm not one myself.:D

VBZebra:

First, Let us address the red highlighted statements; you did not misinterprete the pre-game.

Second, I know that the NFHS and NCAA Men's Casebooks tell us that your situation is a DPF. BUT, by rule, a Blarge; that is a crock of horse manure. Oops! I mean that is impossible!

The NCAA Women's CCA Mechnics Manual covers a blarge correctly. Only one official can have the call and it should (99.999,999,999,999% of the time) be the official who has primary coverage, and in your case: YOU!.

I would have come in strong and taken the call. If your partner wanted to parley (I think I spelled it correctly) with you about the fouls (whenever there is a DF, it is always good mechanics to meet at the center circle to discuss the situation before reporting it) I would have told him that I had the call and we were going to have only one foul. If the A-HC wants to know why only A1 only called for a foul (charge) and that B1 was not charged with block making the foul a DPF, tell him that your whistle was first.

Very very rarely (only 0.000,000,000,001% of the time; yes, the two percentage figures add up to 100%) will I disagree with a Casebook Play, AND this is one of them and I will impose my will with my partner(s) on this one.

Blarge calls occur most of the time (99.999,999,999,999% of the time) when one official starts to ball watch and is watching out of his primary. A good pregame conference will eleiminate blarges from one's game; that means, we do not have blarges in my games.

The last time I had a blarge situation was about six years ago in a MichiganHSAA boys' H.S. varsity game. Team V was pressing in the first half and I was the T (Table Side--TS) at the time of the play. V1, while in his team's backcourt, was dribbling the ball up the court along the TS Sideline. H1 obtained a LGP against V1 just in Team V's backcour where the Division Line and the Sideline intersect, taking the Sideline away from V1. V1 ran H1 over and I came up strong with a stop clock for foul signal followed by a PCF signal.

The L, (who was also the R for the game and had stated numerous times that pregame conferences aren't needed in his games) who should have been on the Endline watching off the ball, was stadning on the TS-Sideline where Team H's freethrow line intersected the Sideline watching the ball (you do not want me to further evaluate is abilities as a L in a three-man officiating crew) and at the same moment that I sounded my whistle for V1's charge he came in with his own whistle for a block by H1, :eek:.

He came to me to tell me that we had DPF (the dreaded blarge in this case), and I told him that we did not. He said that we did, and I told him that he had no business even looking at the ball and that he should have had his tuchus down on the Endline officiating off the ball. :eek:, by him, LOL.

I told him that I had 100% on ball coverage in this play and that there was only going to be one whistle and that it was going to be mine. And that is what we went with. The halftime get together was very quiet. But the rest of the game is another story, because even his long time partner (I was a league assigned substitute) turned on him by the end of the game. It was not pretty in the dressing room after the game.

MTD, Sr.

Snaqs:

You know you are getting old when, in a two-man game, MTD, Jr, from the old L makes it to the other free throw line extended, at the new T, at the same time you are passing that same free throw line extended as the old T becoming the new L. And he is still keeping all ten players between himself and me. LOL

MTD, Sr.

Un-freaking-believable!!!! :rolleyes:

Not only do you deny the existence of a very plainly written case book play on blarges, you also advocate using a procedure that goes directly against the mandate of a very plainly written rule i.e. NFHS rule 2-6.

If you ever pulled that crap in my association, you'd never officiate another game here. And if you ever tried to pull that crap on any of our experienced officials during a game, your azz would be outside in a snowbank in one helluva big hurry. You might get away with intimidating a rookie with that nonsense but that just doesn't work with experienced officials who know the rules.

We want our officials to follow the rules, not make up their own.

You've come up with some real dandies lately, Mark, but you've outdone even yourself this time. Un-freaking-believable!!!!

Not exactly how I would have worded it, but +1.

Yeah, you're probably right, Snaqs. The response was kinda over the top but it's frustrating to me when someone advises readers here to ignore plainly written rules. You know better and I know better....and the other knowledgable people here know better...but....the rookies just learning might take something that far-fetched as being gospel.

On the plus side though, it does get the point across:D.

Rule Definitions and PCAs.
 

Woody:

Keep your britches on and don't get your panties in a bunch (oops, its Mark that gets his panties in a bunch).

Over the years (forty to be exact), there have been a few (very few, 0.000,000,000,001% of them maybe even less) Casebook (NFHS and NCAA Men's/Women's) and Approved Rulings (NCAA Men's/Women's) which I did not completely agree with BUT the 'blarge' Casebook (NFHS) and Approved Ruling (NCAA Men's) is absolutely and completely wrong. It canNOT ever be defended by rule. Either the defender has obtained (NFHS)/established (NCAA Men's/Women's and FIBA) a LGP or he has not.

Everybody knows how abominable I think AP is. BUT, how the NFHS and NCAA Men's handles a 'blarge' is infinitely more abominable. We, as officials, take ball watchers and officials who poach calls outside their PCAs to the woodshed, and yet you are taking me to the woodshed for pregaming a prevention to a bad situation. It should be noted that if I were evalutating officials a NFHA or NCAA Men's game in which a 'blarge" occurs and they handle it per the Casebook/Approved Ruling I would not downgrade them because they handled correctly by rule, but I would advise them on how to pregame 'barges' out of existence as well as to why ball watching and poaching calls out of one's PCA can create cluster **** like "blarges'.

'Blarges' happen because, 99.999,999,999,999% of the time, the second whistle is by an official who is not officiating his PCA and 99.999,999,999,999% of the time his call is not correct because he is officiating out of his PCA and he does not get a good look at the play.

I am going to get down off of my soapbox now and take a nap before my midnight courier run.

MTD, Sr.

I'll Have Whatever He's Having ...
 

... and Mark T. DeNucci, Sr. knows better. His post surprised me. Could he still have some holiday nog left in the house?

P.S. What happened to the kinder, gentler, Jurassic Referee? And picking on an old man like Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.? Shame on you. Weren't you taught to respect your elders?

I've had one blarge in my career and it happened in a college (Men's) game. Dual coverage area between Lead and Trail. A1 begins drive to basket, Trail sees A1 push B1 in the chest, Lead sees B1 tripping A1. Acts happened simultaneously. And initially we both did hold off on preliminaries. Then after eye contact we both thought the other was yielding and we gave opposing signals. :o

So our play does not fit into your opinion of why the case play is "wrong".

I've had one, too, since 1987. Last year. College men's game. I'm the L. Block/charge on a secondary defender. We always give that to the L. For some reason the trail called it with a finger point the other way and it was such a no brainer block and so clearly my call to make that I didn't even consider that he would call it, let alone so badly.

And I'm not sure that even had I seen my partner call the charge first if I would've ceded that call to him. When a call is SO wrong outside of a PCA, I don't see why the crew and the game should have to live with the call because he was quicker to the table.

Going AP is in the rules because there are officials out there who would refuse to cede to the other official in this situation, but I think we should be allowed to talk and determine if one of us is simply wrong and then report that to the table. AP is the rule, but AP is flat-out stupid.

Don't we go to the POI for double fouls? AP isn't always the POI in this situation.

Moral of this story, slow down, raise your fist, and make eye contact with your partner before giving a preliminary signal. :eek:

+1

Yep, and when proven wrong, just refuses to return to the thread! :D

Yes, if there's team control, there's no AP. But usually, there's a shot in the air, and if that shot is missed, AP arrow. Make the shot, count the basket and give it to B or if there is no shot, give it back to A.

Just wanted to clarify. You're right that usually there's a try in the air which would mandate us to go to the AP in a situation like this.

...unless the shot is made, in which case B would get the ball.

Shh! :D;)

Well, yeah. POI. Usually AP.

Do you really think that just because you don't like or agree with a very plainly written RULE, we should all forget about that RULE and do what you think you should be done? Do you have any idea just how ridiculous that concept is?

Mark, I could give a damn less what YOU disagree with. Your OPINION is absolutely meaningless. And it's not only meaningless, it's absurd because it goes directly against plainly written rules. I saw several blarges last year in D1 games and I've already seen a couple of them this year in D1 games also. And between D1 big dawgs too. Yes,blarges shouldn't happen. But unfortunately they do happen sometimes. And they can happen to all of us too. And when they do, we have RULES on how we're supposed to handle them. And if we don't handle them by those RULES but make up our very own rules like you advocate, then we'll all be joining you doing girls eighth grade games in rural Ohio.

You stated above that a RULE can't be defended by rule. Do you know how truly idiotic in nature that statement really is?

Un-freaking-believable!!!!:rolleyes:

When we had our blarge, I ended up going to the coaches and gave them a brief explanation. It was easier to say, "There's a rule for this and my hands are tied," than it would've been to pick one foul and disregard the other.

I may pull out an unapproved mechanic from time to time, but I don't mess with the rules.

I can think of about 4/5 rules off-hand that I think that are completely dumb also, Rich. But that doesn't change the fact they are the rules and I don't get to make up my own to replace 'em. If you do something like that, you're just putting your own azz in a crack. Never call what you can't explain or justify.

Rant over. :) We now return you to regular programming(at least until MTD shows again with yet another 10,000 word filibuster as to why MTD Knows Best.

Same page as me (as you can see by the post above yours).

And I made the response above to your other post before I read this one. I had no doubt you were just too knowledgable to ever put yourself in the position of blatantly ignoring a written rule. You might get away with it, but if you don't.......:eek:

EDIT..geeze we're both agreeing with each other at the exact same time.

I have decided that since I hate the rule that allows coaches to yell for a timeout, I'm going to ignore it from now on! :D

That one has probably caused more headaches for officials than probably any other rule. I'd love to see it disappear. But I ain't MTD Sr so I guess I just gotta live with it. :D

I'm also open to other rules that I can ignore. :)

I do not presume to speak for Mark, but for those who may not know, he is merely pointing out the conflict between rule 4-7 and case 4.19.8C. This conflict, I believe, has been recognized by many, including some who say varying degrees of "That's what you have to do because that's what the case play says," which tells me that they agree that no reasonable person could have read the rule book and come up with this case play.

Nope, MTD is telling us to ignore the case book play completely. There's a heckuva big difference between saying a rule is illogical and saying we should completely ignore that illogical rule and instead follow the procedure that he just made up even though that procedure goes directly against plainly written rules.

Iow there's a big difference between tilting at the windmill and saying the windmill doesn't exist. One is a philosophical discussion; the other is just plain ridiculous.

As some of you might know, in addition to refereeing I also am a Boys JV/Assistant Varsity Coach (make all your a$$istant coach jokes here) and if I'm reading what MTD Sr. has written correctly I would have a huge problem with what he suggests. If I'm the coach who's player ends up getting penalized after the two referees "get together" after a blarge, which I'm assuming we are all considering two opposing preliminary signals (1 PC or TC and 1 Block), I'm going to be a bit peeved. Furthermore, if I'm coaching in a Varsity contest and this happens I'm telling my HC what the casebook play calls for and if the game officials decide to make up their own ruling, then we would be playing the remainder of the game under protest (our league rules allow for protests). I have a feeling that the protest hearing would not go well for the officials who decided to set aside a ruling, especially if they set it aside knowingly.

Just my $.02