Some weird situations and a general Q about training

[dfscott]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

Personally, for 4-6th graders, I'd use NFHS rules. But in the end, the differences are mostly insignificant. NFHS rules on technical fouls are, IMO, much simpler.

In retrospect, I think I will look at those. Other than my head ref's familiarity with the rules, I mainly went with NCAA rules since they are freely available for download and when I went to nhfs.org, it said I had to be a member of a high school sports association to download the NFHS rules. Is anyone aware of any other place to get them?

Originally Posted by SamIAm

Mr. dfscott,

Are you using/running an Upward Basketball league?

Actually, it's not. It's a completely independent neighborhood league sponsored by our local church. We had no basketball programs in the vicinity and tons of kids in 4th or 5th grade that didn't even know how to dribble. (For someone like me that grew up where *everyone* had a hoop in their backyard, it was inconceivable). We started with very basic rules, even for the older kids, for this reason.

We started it last year with about 100 kids and it grew to over 250 this year and we had to turn people away. We were overwhelmed with the positive response -- so much that my wife quit her corporate job to be the full time Recreation Director of the church primarily to run this league.

Originally Posted by grunewar

In the younger leagues we sometimes have to blow the whistle to stop the play and remind the players about the rule (in the heat of battle and all). Thankfully, the coaches are pretty good about it.

We do that as well for our younger leagues (K & 1st grade). We don't impose any penalties for dribbling violations or fouls -- we just stop play, tell them what they did wrong, and then continue without forcing a turnover.

Originally Posted by bainsey

Those illegal defense rules can be problematic, too, particularly, "no pressing if you're up by 10 or more points." You'll just have to keep your eye on the scoreboard at times. Also, I make it clear in pre-game that, if you commit a foul during an illegal defense, the foul still stands. (Some have argued that there should have been a whistle prior to the foul.)

Indeed. We used to say that only the trailing team could press, but it became a problem in a few see-saw battles, so we just changed it so everyone could.

The main reason it's in place is because there is no 10-second rule, so the leading team could simply hold the ball in the backcourt to run out the clock.