At our regionals a couple of weeks back, I was scouting a game in the gym we would play in and there was a 3-man crew working the game. I was somewhat surprised as we were still in pool play and we had 2-man crews for our first two games. After they finished the game, I asked one of the officials if we were doing 3 man that day for some reason. He said no, that his crew always worked as a 3-man crew and the rest of the day it would be 2 man.

I am assuming this is a crew that always works 3 man during the HS season and will only take games as a 3-man crew in the spring/summer season. Has anybody ever seen anything like this before, where a crew can demand to work 3 man and get their wishes, even if all other crews are 2 man?

Of course I am just speculating, but I would say it is very likely that they are getting 2-man money and splitting it 3 ways just to work on their 3-man skills as a crew.

Hadn't thought about that - may well be the case. They worked really well together and I was disappointed that we didn't get them for a game. The best refereeing of the tournament, hands down. Second best was probably the first crew we had, the others left a bit to be desired.

You see?? It's working!

What's working? I feel like I missed part of this conversation.

Sorry, I meant the working on getting better was a success for the 3-man crew.

They just look like they are better and want to stay that way :)

Maybe two of them have great rules knowledge and one has great court presence, so they wanted to get a good balance. ;)

That would be Juulie, Padgett and Santa.

:)

In our spring league here, we are allowed to assign our people however we want. There is an official in charge of each gym and they can have 2 or 3 person crews working. The teams pay the same regardless, it is just how you want to split the money. I think there is only one gym running 2 person crew (They want the extra $$) but most of us run 3 since that is what is run at the camps we attend so we might as well use it for practice.
Speaking of spring league, it is always intersting to see different crews work. We have a running clock with one point and ball for all common fouls. I try to run switches, rotations and reporting as in a regular game. Some others don't. Those that run the mechanics as though it were a "real" game seem to have a better control of the game. FWIW.

We are running 3-person crews for some of the AAU games and in quite a few of the summer leagues. In particlar, we work a JV league as 3-person, and I believe all of our varsity leagues are 3-person. It is rare that we have the same crew game day after day. In HS, we do not have "set" crews and I might work with a particular official and never see that official again for the entire season. Sometimes, I wish that we did have "set" crews and other times I am really glad that we don't. I think Tony mentioned one time that in his association in NC, they are together as a crew for the whole season.

What seems odd to me is that some games were 2-man and others were 3-man all in the same round of the tourney. I'm somewhat surprised coaches go for this.

They don't ask us :)

Each game is pretty much independent - the two teams on the floor play under equal conditions, so where's the harm in having an extra official in a couple of games. The standard was two whistle, they allowed one crew to do three. I don't think that alters conditions so fundamentally that it invalidates the pool play results.

I know that it doesn't matter, you know that it doesn't matter, but many others may not.

I know it's at least our intramural policy that, unless we can use X officials for every game in a given tourney round, we don't use them for any. Not the best policy, but what we go by.