End of game
 

I know the philosophy is that a foul in the 1st QT is a foul in the 4th QT. 8th grade boys, 3rd place game tied with 5 sec left. Team A drives the endline (not very hard) and team B was in legal guarding position until he gave one of those hip checks. In the bonus, hits 1 and team goes on to win by 1. Coach didn't say much about it, but the fans were definitely on us. Saying that was weak. You hate to call a foul like that to decide the game but it is still a foul. I know the proper thing is to call it (my partners call), but would anybody let that go.

And this is important, why?

The crew needs to be consistant. Either it's a call you BOTH would make at either end of the court or not. Period.

Either the player was hip-checked out of bounds or not.

at the end of the game, my only criteria is to make sure that it is a "solid" foul...marginal contact plays get no whistle from me...

If the defender had the dribbler in a hammerlock, some of the fans would have said it was weak.

Do "marginal contact plays" get a whistle from you other times?

Since the only reason you are questioning this call is b/c of the fans I'll go out on a limb and say it was a legitimate foul that required a whistle.

Some would say that all your foul calls should be "solid fouls." Marginal contact plays shouldn't get whistles from you in the first place.

To the OP, you said it yourself, the defender hip checked a player out of bounds. If you believed the hip check disadvantaged the player, then call the foul. Fans will b**ch and moan regardless of what you call. Some fans expect everything short of a cross body tackle to be ignored at the end.

Why do you hate to call it? Would you have called it on the first play of the game.

Change it to "You hate for a kid to commit such a foul to decide the game..."

This statement is your problem.

One call never, ever decides a game. The totality of every single minute does.

Don't give into the myopic behavior of others.

Okay I will reword some things. I never ever care what the fans think. Second, I had no probably with the call. Just saying if I were on the losing end, would hate to lose on foul like that because if it were my team, I would be mad at the player that he was out of position and he forced the official to call it.

And the person I was working with at the time has a tendancy to not blow his whistle loud enough. Makes it difficult to sell the call IF it happens to be questionable to the average fan.

Not to pile on but....

When did we ever have to sell a call to a fan? Or to a coach for that matter? The call sells itself if it's the right call. And that's all we should worry about; getting the call right.

JMHO.....

Don't even worry about that aspect of the game. You are no longer a player, coach, or fan. Be more worried about what your assignor/supervisor/observer/crew chief/mentor has to say to about the calls/non-calls at the end of the game.

+1

but the fans were definitely on us.

if you HADN'T called it, the other team's fans would have been on you.

Slightly better, but I still think you're missing the point.

A team doesn't "lose on [a] foul." They win or lose on the score, which is always cumulative of the entire game, including the calls you make.

In a close game, something you may or may not have called in the first quarter affects the game's outcome every bit as something you may or may not have called in the last minute.

In basketball, we often hear, "THAT decided the game." It's never just THAT. It's always a series of things. To pin an outcome on one play -- no matter how memorable it may be -- is really a lazy-minded outlook. In a close game, you can often find at least a dozen things that could have changed the outcome.

While this is all true, the earlier something happens (such as an official's mistake that leads to an open three point shot in the third quarter) the more chance the other team has to make up for the mistake. It is possible (I know I'm somewhat backtracking on previous statements) for an official to make a bad call or no-call at the end of the game that actually costs a team the game.

Very well, then. Let's say that you completely kick a block/charge call in the first quarter. A1 drives to the basket, goes airborne, B2 hits LGP too late, the basket is good, and a crash ensues. You stupidly call a charge and wave off the basket. How is Team A ever going to make up for those two points you just negated?

The only thing Team A can do it is keep playing and do the best it can. I don't see how it can "make up" for your mistake.

You can certainly affect a close game's outcome at its end, but in reality, no more than you can affect it via a first-quarter kick. While plays and score situations certainly cascade as the game goes on, you can still affect a close game's outcome at any time. The question is whether anyone will remember it, and people are typically too caught up in the game's emotion to remember something early.

Mind you, that doesn't give anyone permission not to bring their A-game early. Quite the contrary, bring it and maintain it throughout. You will have an effect in a close game, just make sure it's not a negative one.

Read it as "overcome", not "make up".

And, the fact is, that the closer to the end of the game, the more scrutiny there is on the players, the coaches and the officials.

Are you going to suggest a team plays the same in the last minute with a 2 point lead as they do when down by 2 points? Or even when they're tied? You take away two points from a team with a minute left, they can possibly recover. You take away two points with no time on the clock, they can't.

Talk all you want about FTs missed and layups missed (and they aren't irrelevant), but let's not pretend a mistake with 2 minutes left is the same as a mistake with 2 seconds remaining.

No question. I submit, though, that it has a lot to do with what most people can take in. If you were to take a step back and analyze the totality of a close game, wouldn't you likely find a number of things that could have affected its outcome?

Of course not! How did you connect those dots?

I'm not talking about the blame game here.

My point is that, in a close game, our actions always affect the outcome. The belief that officials shouldn't affect the outcome is unrealistic, and it usually comes from what people can remember. People typically move on from something you kicked earlier in the game, but when you analyze a game objectively, what you do indeed plays a role, whether people remember it or not.

Let's find the dots:
I'm sorry, but what you wrote above (particularly what I highlighted without otherwise altering) leads to the following question:

Your suggestion that a kicked block/charge call in the first quarter is just as vital to the end of the game as the same kicked call with 2 seconds left is silly. If it's not what you meant, it's certainly what you wrote.

I know this was posed to bob, but my answer is, "of course, you'll find plays that affected the outcome. But their significance on the game is diminished in comparison to events that happened in closer proximity to the end."

If A1 misses two FTs that would have tied the game with a minute left, it's a big deal but not insurmountable. If he misses those same game-tying FTs with 1 second left, overcoming becomes even more difficult. If he misses those same game-tying FTs with no time left, the error has now become insurmountable.

The same applies to missed calls or kicked rules. If I wipe off a game-tying score with 60 seconds left; they can possibly recover. If I wipe it with no time left, they cannot. Whether the score got wiped due to a player's error (travel, PC foul, etc) or my error (bad call, poor rules knowledge) makes no difference WRT the ability of the team's ability to recover.

Okay, fair enough.

Now, allow me to connect your dots.

"Overcome" seems to be the key verb here. Are you saying that it's okay to kick a call, provided that a team can overcome it?

Yes, That's exactly what we're saying.

/sarcasm.

That was Snaq's question, Bob. I didn't see an answer to your question a few posts back.

Good grief. I'll let Bob's response speak for me as well.

I'll take that as a "no," which proves my point. You can affect the outcome of a game with a kicked call at any time. The only difference, as Bob pointed out, is the scrutiny is greater at the end. That's because people can only remember so much.

And you're going to have to do one of three things here, it seems.
1. Acknowledge that a late mistake is more damaging than an early mistake.
2. Acknowledge that you think players and coaches don't make adjustments late in the game based on the score.
3. Simply live with the cognitive dissonance.

Please.

If you have a choice (and you really don't), then you'd rather kick a call at the beginning of the game than at the end.

All missed calls affect the game. Those at the end affect the game more.

No one said (I don't think) that missed calls at the beginning don't affect the game.

No, that's not the only difference. And Bob didn't say it was. Your point isn't proven at all. I don't think it's okay to make a mistake at any point. But mistakes happen.

I do think a mistake made with 1 second has more potential to change the actual outcome (who wins or loses) than a mistake made 1 minute into the 1st quarter.

Where I struggle is in understanding how this is even debatable.

I can tell you that college supervisors and successful officials will tell you there is a big difference between kicking a call in the 1st quarter and kicking a call in the last 2 minutes. As has been pointed out, teams have time to overcome a bad call made early in the game.

I guarantee you that if you and I were in camp and you kicked a call big-time in the 1st quarter and I kicked a called in the last minute with the score tied and all other things being equal, you are going to come out with a higher rating than me. Difference being is that your 1st quarter kicked call will just be thought of a brain-fart while my last minute kicked call will be thought of as me wilting under pressure. My kicked call will also be looked at as hampering a team's chance to win that game.

You may not agree with that philosophy but that is the reality of the situation.

Tell me this, who's interception was more detrimental to his team's chances of winning, Manning's pick-6 against the Saints or Big Ben's pick-6 against the Packers? Both put their teams down by 14 points.

"If you're gonna kick one, dont make it a gamer!" - Violet Palmer

If, by this, you mean, the reality is this is how most people perceive it, I certainly won't argue that.

However, let's look at your camp example. Would it be a fair evaluation to say that you wilted with your late-game kick? Could you have simply had a brain fart, too, or is it right to jump all the way to pressure crack? It sounds to me like the evaluator could also be too caught up in the emotion of the situation. It's true that people are going to be a lot more emotional regarding a last-minute or last-second kick, but I submit the only way to be accurate is to take emotion out of the equation.

Look at it this way. Let's say you had a play-by-play print-out of a one-point game, complete with a list of calls that were confirmed to be kicked. If those kicks affect the score at any time, they can certainly affect the outcome. Just because they're not fresh in someone's mind, doesn't mean it never happened. Others may "feel good" that they can overcome your mistake, but when you take the emotion out, your error still played a role.

This is where I make my point that officials affecting the outcome of a close game is inevitable. That's not to be flippant. On the contrary, everything we do matters out there, so it may be better not to get caught up in the late-game hype.

Great question. Most might say Porter's return, because it came with roughly three minutes left, but when you take an overhead look, the Steelers only lost by six points, so even though Collins took it back in the first, you can argue that pick-six loomed even larger. There's no easy answer on that one.

Are you seriously trying to say that just because two mistakes cost the same amount of points that they have the same impact even if one is in the first quarter and the other occurs as the 4th quarter expires?

Another thing to add is some people may say officials tend to call more fouls late in the game. The only reason that may be true is because teams tend to amp up the intensity towards the end which may causes some to play a little out of control.

Yes, that can happen. There are some things that cannot be "made up" from an official's mistake.

Take another look at my kicked block/charge example, and the points lost from it. Just because a team can "overcome" someone else's mistakes doesn't change that a team is paying the price for the mistake in the first place.

But unfortunately success in moving up the ladder in this profession relies heavily on perception. Yes, when talking to a fan I'm gonna make the same statement as you would "hey, there were a lot a calls/no-calls that affected the outcome of your game", but when it's just us officials in a room and we are being completely candid, that bad foul call with 10 seconds left looms a lot larger than the equally bad call made in the 2nd quarter.

I didn't ask if it "can happen." No one here has denied that a 1st quarter mistake can be big. Although the likelihood that a 1Q mistake could actually cost a team the game is so small as to be safely ignored. You seem to be suggesting that a 1Q mistake is always equal to the equivalent mistake as time expires.

When we take a overhead look most people will say Pittsburgh had recovered from that pick-6 by the 4th quarter and the mistake Mendenhahl made had more affect on the final outcome.

That's just my opinion but I think you see what I'm getting at.

I know there is one cliche' I've heard from the very first time I started attending camps. "39 minutes of perfect officiating can be ruined and forgotten by 1 big mistake in the final minute".

Not only is it perceived as larger; it is larger.

No argument there either.

I had one buzzer-beater game this year. Team A had to go the length of the court, down 1, I was the L, :07 left. Just before my partner administered the throw in, all I could think of was, "don't.... miss... anything!" I braced for any impending play in the lane.

Of course, it never got there. My partner had a hand-check at the division line with :02 left, double bonus. A1 missed both, but A2 got the rebound, and got the shot off with it falling at the buzzer.

Now, Team B's fans were grumpy about my partner's last call, so all the focus is on him. But, there's no question that I may have done some things during that game to affect its outcome. That's the reality.

But, as you correctly pointed out, it's likely not the perception.

Didn't say "always." In a close game, though, it can certainly play a role.

Really? I must have misunderstood this post, then:

We're obviously talking about close games. For games that aren't close, this entire discussion is moot.

Right!

The score is always cumulative of the entire game, but the wider the margin, the less likely your calls will affect its outcome (unless your calls are so ridiculously lopsided toward one team that you need to be called on the carpet).

Again, obvious. What's your point?

Aw, man! I thought we were done here.

My initial point to this...

...was that a single play NEVER decides a game. The accumulation of everything within the game does.

And you're wrong.

Fixed it for ya. ;)

Okay, how so?

I really hate quoting myself, but here's how:

Finally, bob has already stated my position quite accurately:

All true, but the key verb here is decide.

What decides the outcome of the game? The score. How long do we keep score? For the entire game, not just the final seconds.

It's very easy to get caught up in the emotions and drama of the final seconds. I get caught up in them, too. Naturally, it's what people remember.

But, let's put our heads above the emotions (as we officials are expected to do). In the grand scheme of things, the final seconds of a close game don't mean jack squat without everything else that happened during the game's entirety.

"THAT PLAY decided the game" is an emotional statement. When you look at the game objectively, the game is always decided via totality.

MANAGING THE LAST FOUR MINUTES OF THE GAME.
In a close competitive contest the last four minutes of the game are the most important. That is not to say that the rest of the game is unimportant, but in a close game everything that happens during the last four minutes is magnified in the eyes of players, coaches and fans. It is at the four minute mark of a close game that everyone involved realizes that each and every play is vital and each and every call made by an official is a potential game decider.

It is vitally important that the officials don’t change their approach to officiating the game during the last four minutes of a close contest. What was or wasn’t a foul in the first four minutes of the game must be called the same during the last four minutes when the game is on the line. In some instances officials tend to call what was a good block in the first quarter a foul at the two- minute mark of the fourth quarter.

Slow down just a little bit more during the last four minutes of a close game. Slow your whistle down when calling fouls and violations. Slow down just a tad when resuming play with a throw-in or free throw. Slow down and be certain that Team A is in the bonus or the double bonus. Slow down when reporting fouls. Slow down and make sure you have communicated all pertinent information to your partner(s) if a technical foul is called.

Anticipate time-outs even better during the last four minutes of the game. Know how many of each length of TO's each team has. Anticipate that a team may want a time out after the other team has made two or three baskets in a row, or when a player is trapped and in danger of having a five second violation called, or when the opposition has scored the tying or go ahead basket with just seconds remaining. Watch the players on their way to the bench after a time out has been called. This is aperiod of the game when emotions run high.

During the last four minutes of the game always make sure both coaches are aware of where the ball will be played in following a time out. Don’t assume the coach knows that the ball is coming in from the sideline, while in fact he is drawing up a play thinking it is coming in from the end line. The C in three and the lead in two should always anticipate a designed play involving a back screen after a time out near the end of the game.

Officials should use the time-outs during the last four minutes of the game just as the teams do. Get together and review the current situation. Which team is ahead? Which teams are in the bonus or double bonus? Who has to foul if they miss the free throw? Always anticipate the possibility of an intentional foul.

Last second plays after a time out can really get officials in hot water if they are not on their toes. Anticipate throws from A1 to A2 along the end line out of bounds. Anticipate the defenders reaching through the boundary line slapping the ball or committing fouls. Be ready for the player throwing the ball in to run along the end line trying to bait the defenders into running through a screen.

The last four minutes of a close game is when officials must work the hardest, get the best looks and use their best judgment. It is the time for the best communication with partners, coaches, players and scorers and timers. It is the time to know which official is ruling on the last shot. It is the time to be ready for anything.

Has your player stepped inbounds in order to do this?

Good grief, don't throw the emotion canard at me, it's not going to get you anywhere but ignored due to lack of relevance. Here's the statement you made with which I initially disagreed:

That's simply not true, but I think you've sufficiently backtracked from it and fallen back to the word "decide." While a single play may not have "decided" the game, it can certainly affect the game. And the significance of that impact is inversely proportional to the time remaining in the game at the time of the event. That's what I've been arguing.

This thread kinda warped over time, did it not? The OP, I think, recognized the relative importance of the final seconds in the scheme of things. He also feels, apparently, that a bad no-call is better than a bad call. I would agree. But what I get out of the OP is that he is asking if he should change his standard of making a call in the final seconds to help avoid making a bad call in this circumstance. I think most of us agree the answer to this is no.

Any foul call in the dying seconds is going to elicit fan response and bench response in a close game. I know it is HTBT, but the description in the OP matches up to: blowing the whistle = good call, right call; and, not blowing the whistle = choking or swallowing the whistle.

A bad no-call is just as bad as a bad call. Either way you've kicked it.

Your standard for fouls needs to be the same from tip to final horn. The idea that a correctly called foul takes the game away from the players needs to be rejected for the mistaken belief that it is.

Absolutely!

Disagree.

It's better to miss something that happened than to "see" something that didn't.

You're dodging the point. A bad call in the first quarter puts a team at a disadvantage which they have time to overcome. The same bad call inside 2 minutes to play might not allow them time to overcome it.

In that respect, the late bad call is distinct from the early one, and in a close game might be sufficient to decide, determine, or otherwise affect the outcome.

What's emotional about that? The point concerns how much time a team has to overcome a disadvantage inflicted by an official's bad call.

Yep, and it's true at all points of the game, not just the final moments.

INC vs. IC

They both have the exact same thing in common... "incorrect."

I agree that you shouldn't call a foul unless you're 100% sure it's a foul, but that doesn't mean that it's better to miss a foul than call a phantom foul. Both are equally bad, we just choose to err on the side of not calling fouls (as we should due to the other effects of a foul - disqualification, bonus, etc).

Actually, it does mean that.

Not in the closing moments of the game, it doesn't.

When you say it's better to err on the side of missing something rather than calling something that isn't there, it absolutely does mean that.

You want to make 100% sure there's a foul before you call it.

You do not have to be 100% sure there isn't a foul before letting it go.

The concept applies all game long.

You obviously don't want to make either mistake, but you've already admitted we choose to err on one side vs the other.

The only reason it's ever better to err on the side of not calling a foul is the fact that fouls accumulate. At the end of the game, where foul accumulation no longer matters, you do just as much harm by not calling a foul that is as you do by calling a foul that isn't. It's a complete change in the equation.

You've got two incorrect premises.

1. It's not the only reason. We apply the same philosophy to travel calls, and they don't "accumulate."
2. "foul accumulation" never ceases to matter.

Your other reasons then? And also please explain why the number of fouls called matters after the game ends.

To many officials swallow their whistles in the final seconds of the game and let players get creamed because they don't want to "affect" the outcome of the game. Are you really suggesting it's better for the game to do that than to kick it the other way?

Actually, it's very relevant to my initial point. People who say "that play decided the game" often do so out of emotion, when they're not looking at the totality.

First of all, I'll grant you the backtracking. That statement in red you have isn't correct, and I thank you for calling me on that. Perhaps I meant to say "CAN affect," but I didn't. If that's your main dispute, I concede that point.

That said, I don't believe it's a blanket statement where the significance of the impact is always inversely proportional to the time remaining. It may be a generality, but it isn't always the case. Again, I point to the block/charge kick example I made. There's no way to make up for that.

And again, as tref pointed out with his post, people often remember the last four minutes of a game, due to its magnification. To paraphrase my point, often that magnification is so great, that people easily lose sight on the rest of the events that caused the game's outcome.

For the same reason we don't call a travel unless we're absolutely sure it was a travel. Or do you call a travel when you're not quite sure and it looks funny and/or ugly? For the same reason you don't guess on a call. If I'm forced to guess, I'm guessing it was nothing.

The number of fouls don't matter after the game ends, but they certainly can matter with 20 seconds left. Besides, this is a pointless argument, you don't call any fouls after the game ends.

Where in the hell did I say that? We're not even talking about the official who swallows his whistle on a foul he sees. That's a whole different discussion that's not even relevant here. :rolleyes:

Some people may, but without evidence, you don't get to toss that at other officials in a hypothetical discussion. It's a canard in that sitation.


It was.
Sure there is. You make a PC call, in error, that takes away tying points with 60 seconds left in the game; that team still has 60 seconds to try to tie or win.

Can they get "those" two points? Obviously not, but they can sure try to get two "different" points. Strategies change now, they'll likely take a shot, or a defensive risk, that they wouldn't have otherwise.

You do the same thing as time expires, they're screwed out of a chance to win the game.

I note that you didn't actual give any other reason. You just listed the other situations where we err on the side of not blowing the whistle.

This whole argument does indeed boil down to seeing the foul but bottling it because it's better to not call a foul than to call a foul. The same injury is done to the game either way but the ref consoles himself that he wasn't really sure when he was/should have been.

Are you suggesting that it's only appropriate to be 100% sure on fouls, and not violations? I'm not sure I can articulate the "whys" here sufficiently for you if that's the case. If you agree that violations should have just as much certainty behind them as fouls, then you can use your own reasons.

Whether he was out of position is a completely different argument as well. We're only talking about a case where the official thinks there may have been a foul; not where he saw a foul but simply didn't have the stones to call it; or worse yet decided he didn't want to "take the game away from the kids."

Not at all. I agree completely on both fouls and violations that the only acceptable way to call the game is if you didn't see it, it didn't happen. I'm just saying you didn't give me a reason why this is so.

This is a disconnect, as I've not only been talking about an official who is unsure. I'm speaking to the game itself, not how we call it. The game is hurt when we make a bad (that is a factually incorrect) non-call just as much as it is hurt when we make a bad call in the closing of the seconds. Even if we were philosophically correct to make the non-call due to being screened or having bad positioning or needing a third official to get it but only having two, the damage to the game is the same.

It's just that we have to accept it.

Actually my concern with the OP is that he was doubting himself b/c of the fans. He seemed to have officiated the final plays properly but b/c the fans reacted a certain way he questioned what he did.

We might be parsing words here, but in the OP, it did not appear to be a 'bad call', but rather a reaction by the OP that was second guessing what appeared to be a 'correct call'.

Not dodging anything, mb. If anything, I'm disputing it. Just because something can be overcome does not change the fact that an early kick still can affect a game. That was my point.

Never on its own. There's too much going on in the course of 32 (40, 48, etc.) minutes for one play to decide anything.

I didn't think I had to, you're the one who stated the only reason for the philosophy is the accumulation of fouls; when you obviously don't agree or you'd disregard that philosophy for violations.

Either way, you must have some other reason for applying the philosophy to violations or you wouldn't do it. I'm just saying you can use your own reasons and apply those to fouls, also, unless there's some reason they don't apply.


The ref who is sure but holds his whistle anyway has different issues that aren't really at play here.

I agree that missed calls hurt the game, but I disagree that they hurt it just as much as phantom calls.

And I'm still not sure with whom you were arguing his point, because no one disputed it.

The dispute was with your "just as much" insinuation.

Indeed it is. The whole point of my initial post was for the OP not to buy into the canard.

That's small consolation, if they wind up losing by one or two.

And my only contention with your initial post was with the "just as much" fallacy.

I'm not saying the two points can't be costly. No one has. But the more time a team has to overcome the errors, the less I feel sorry for them.

So: tie game, last second shot, no contact, official mistakenly calls a shooting foul, shooter sinks the first FT to win the game.

That's not a bad call determining the outcome? Or you're going to tell me that the FT contributed. :rolleyes:

Well then how about this one: team down by 2, last second shot, clearly off in time, official mistakenly waves it off, shot goes in (if it's a 2 we should go to OT, if it's a 3 the game's over). That's not a bad call determining the outcome?

Again: it seems to me that you're not just wrong, you're obviously wrong. I can't imagine why you're disputing these points.

The score being tied and then within 2 points when the error occurred determined the outcome. If these mistakes happen in a 20 point game, they are barely noticed. They had a big effect for sure, but they cannot in and of themselves decide the game.

There it is.

Three pages in and I'm wondering the same thing. :confused: Seems pretty obvious to me.

Agreed. Doubting oneself in any tough decision is natural. But doubting yourself on a call because of the reaction of fans, is not something that should happen at all.

Good example of the false magnification of the importance of a call at the end:

Years ago, one of the first varsity games I ever called. Visitors trailed the entire game, the outcome was apparently decided. Mostly subs were in the game. Visitors threw in some 3's, got a couple of turnovers, and all of a sudden it's a one point game in the last few seconds. Pressure in the backcourt and the ball is knocked out, home to inbound right in front of visitors bench with 1 second on the clock. V1, 6'5" center, pressures the throw-in, extending over the line up to his armpits. I give the warning. He backs up, then, on the count of 3, steps up and does the same thing again. T Visitors bench threw a fit. Home missed both free throws, threw it in, and the game was over. V principal called my assignor to complain about the call, saying, among other things, that it had cost them a chance to win the game. On the contrary, had I not made this (proper) call, and the pressure resulted in a turnover, it would have given them a chance to win which they should not have had.

Because he's hung up on the term "decide."

Good Article ...
 

Source, please?