Ball watching
 

Just a general question, for those of you that do observations, what indicators do you use to tell when an official is ball watching when the ball is not in his primary?

I key on an officials' eyes...you can't always tell from the "angle" of the body...but is the official following the ball in flight from the lead? (should be staying "low"..not looking to the rim) You can miss low contact if you're looking "up" when you should be looking for body contact. Are you staying with the shooter when he/she is in your primary (easy to miss contact after the shot if following the shot)...Or is the on-ball official staying with the shooter after a shot? Too many times officials miss contact after the shot because they follow the shot instead of staying with the shooter.
Also...When at Trail, is the official keeping focused off-ball when the ball is out of his/her primary?
Most officials don't realize that they are ball watching, but once you get them to understand the importance of off-ball activity it gets easier for them. Its a tough habit to break, but gets easier with experience.

If they mark a three outside their area, you can be pretty sure. And a true ball watcher will do this, e.g., mark a three at the top of the key from lead.

That's a great one, but also if you see "eyes up" to the basketball from lead is another good one.

Was doing an evaluation of a JV official prior to my game last night and one of my partners and I both commented that it looked like the guy was doing a lot ball watching.

When he signaled a 3 from the Lead, on the Trails side of the court no less, it was a clear indicator of just how bad his ball watching was.

On the other side...Be sure if an official marks the three they stay with the shooter! How many times have you seen a three go up and no one sees the defender back the shooter out after he returns to the floor??

Something I key on is body movement. I notice officials that watch the ball seem to move every time the ball moves. The ball is passed, players in an officials' primary don't move much, but the official moves with the pass. This is just one thing. Another thing that is obvious is when there are whistles or double whistles outside of an official's primary.

All you have to do is watch their head. If their head moves everytime the ball does, that is in my opinion the best way to determine. When I look at screens and cuts of the off ball players and the official never looks at them, it is clear they are not watching those players either.

Peace

Thanks everyone for your input. I got a rather nasty informal evaluation last night from a varsity official that keyed on this issue. I'm doubtful of the veracity of the feedback simply because I know while at lead I was seeing a lot of off ball post play from some of the bigs that were bumping each other a lot. I had some words with them to clean it up (they did because I told them specifically what I was seeing so they knew I was watching).

For some reason this varsity official said I was ball watching and I was wondering what might have lead him to think so. He wasn't very helpful on the specifics of this but it felt a bit like he was just tearing me down. Thanks again.

Just because someone works varsity does not mean they give all perfect advice. No one here was there so we have no idea if he was giving good advice. Take the information for what it is worth and move on. That being said if his basic critique keeps coming up over and over again, then you might want to consider more of what is being said. You did not have to watch the ball the entire time, but maybe at the wrong time. Do not totally dismiss everything you hear, just be aware of it for the future and try to improve.

Peace

What Rutledge said. Take advice you hear from the varsity guys with a grain of salt. When the JV guys ask me what I think, I always try to have something very specific for them, not the general crap that gets spouted off over and over by varsity officials who don't want to admit they just didn't watch you work (oh, your positioning could use some work, your mechanics should be more sharp, etc etc).

For instance, I watched a guy the other night who was definitely ball watching. How did I know? Because he spotted a three pointer that wasn't in his area, while I was watching two bigs go bonkers on each other trying to position for the rebound...and they were right in front of him. Another time, he gave the foul tip signal on a blocked shot that was way out of his area. I used these two specific instances to help him realize he was ball watching more than he may have thought he was. Next game I saw him, he had already improved, and I told him so.