Whew...tough one tonight
 

Ugly girls game. Probably not 100% on top of my game, and V coach is pretty constant in his griping. Combine all those and made for a long 32 minutes of game time. Felt like tonight, every time I moved for a better look, I ended up moving the wrong way. Out of control girls didn't help.

Should have shut the coach down, but he mainly worked my partner about me rather than me directly.

Boys game following was great. Didn't hear four total comments all night, game was mostly double digits all night, though V kept it interesting and got it back to 6 or 7 in the 4th before losing by about 15. Had no problems until the very end.

H leading late, about 20 seconds left after they score. V1 bringing the ball up the court with pressure from H1 who is playing tight but good defense. Some contact, could have been a foul, but I allow them to attempt to play through it at this point. I wish I'd just called it, though, as V1 ends up pushing off very noticeably and I have to go get the PC foul. V Coach, who hadn't said two words to me all night is not happy. Neither am I.

I'm not big on game management fouls, but calling the marginal contact by H1 up 15 points with 20 seconds left prevents all of this.

Thank goodness I'll live to fight another day. :D

What is a "game management" foul"? How does it differ from a regular foul?

+1.

Game management has (almost) nothing to do with live-ball foul calls.

Why didn't they let the pretty girls play?

Didn't take long for you to get up to speed.;)

Was traveling all day yesterday and didn't get a chance to respond. Great comments from both.

My thoughts - I used to deplore the idea of "game management" fouls. I still don't like the term, as it implies to some people making things up. I don't condone that. At all.

That said, the situation was thus: B's defense was tight, there was contact, and at times it was questionable as to whether B maintained legal position. It is likely it wasn't at some point while bringing the all up the court. I know it either was or wasn't, but I couldn't be 100% sure, so I passed. That's my general philosophy - don't guess, only call what you're sure of.

In this situation, I believe calling a foul on the defender would have been appropriate and defendable. I let the contact pass. A1 responded by pushing off and that had to be called. My partner (who is my assignor) and I agreed afterwards that it would have been nice to have called the defender for the marginal contact.

I'm generally the "in the first two minutes and the last two minutes" guy. But I've come to recognize there are situations in which my tolerance for certainty may change from 100% to 80 or 90% in the final seconds of a game that is no longer in question. I also know others believe that to be a bad philosophy no matter the situation.

Just remember: release the ball for the dribble BEFORE lifting your pivot. ;)

Touché

You're now in the process of officiating the result of the play, not the actual play. Would you have been beating yourself up like this if you let the contact by B go and A then just passed the ball?

It's either a foul or it isn't. It's either illegal contact or it isn't, marginal or not. Game management hasn't got much to do with it. Judgment and consistency do. All you're doing now is questioning your own judgment. My opinion? You weren't sure it was a foul and thus you did the right thing. Fuggedaboutit.

Jmo fwiw.

PS-just because your partner was an assignor doesn't mean he knows whatinthehell he's doing. :)

Do you make this statement from the standpoint of an official or an assignor?

Just askin' :p

Good thoughts, and thanks for sharing. You're right - it's the aftermath of the original contact, not the play itself, that's causing me to analyze it.

And, this wasn't a big deal in the end. Hell, the coach (who is also the AD) called the assignor to tell him he thought I did a good job (I've only been here a year so he wasn't sure who I was) and that he was sorry he got a bit animated after the call. Overall it was a great game, and had that play happened in the 3rd quarter probably not even a thought about it, but because it was the final play of the game it stuck.

I also won't lie - the much more difficult and contentious girls game before it probably added to my over-analyzing of that one.

Imo you're doing exactly what you should be doing...trying to learn from a difficult situation that you ran into. And you'll find that's a never-ending process.....even for the so-called senior big dawgs. When you stop learning, you stop developing. The game is constantly changing and the officials have to change with it.

Just don't beat yourself up when you're learning. You've already got people standing in line ready to do that for you.:)

JMO.

Amen to that!

I'm at that point in my career that is a dangerous one, I think - I'm fairly well respected as a "good young official" and most coaches (who know me-while I've got seven years in now, I'm only in my second year in this state) know they'll get a good effort and a good game when they see me. I get recommendations, and I expect to get reasonable playoff assignments this year.

It's a point where it would be easy to be complacent. I have a full varsity schedule, a good relationship with my assignors, etc, and could officiate a lot of years just "staying the same." But I'd really like to get better - a lot better. I don't think this would be much fun otherwise!