Rough perimeter play

[Welpe]

I had a Frosh/JV doubleheader last Friday where both teams in both games played a very physical perimeter defense. Lots of hand checks and riding the dribbler while he was trying to make his move inside or look for an open pass.

In the JV game, I whistled the first hand check about 30 seconds into the game. Coach yelled because it was so early in the game (not that I care) and I was trying to set the tone after the wrestling match of a freshman game we had.

The thing that troubled me is I'm not sure how consistently I was calling these fouls. The defenders were riding the dribblers quite a bit and I feel I could probably have whistled a lot more fouls than I did and they would still do it.

I grabbed what I thought were the egregious ones but frankly, the contact was so constant that I know I missed some that should have been called. The other issue is that I found I was calling more fouls against the winning team because the losing team was not able to play through the contact and it was putting them at a disadvantage. The guards on the winning team were better able to play through the contact.

Both coaches, needless to say, complained a lot about the perimeter contact and the perceived imbalance in the calls. Can't say I blame them but I also took that feedback with a grain of salt for obvious reasons.

What can we do in a game like this to ensure that we're calling the perimeter play consistently but not drowning the game in whistles?

Both teams played a run and gun offense with very little in the way of set plays. Most of the judgment regarding contact was on the perimeter. It was pretty exhausting running two whistle on both of these games and I came away feeling like I did not turn in a good performance on either game.