Situational Officiating

[Smitty]

Originally Posted by The_Rookie

Girls JV.. Rivalry game. With 26.9 left in game, and game is tied at 30. A1 dribbling up the sideline and B1 makes body contact with her 5 feet past midcourt line.

Can you be more specific about what you mean by body contact? Did the dribbler lose her balance or was she hindered in any way because of the contact? Or did she continue to dribble past the contact without any problems?

[buckrog64]

Calling fouls and being an official is usually a thankless job. The association wants stuff called one way, the coaches another, the fans want you to 'let them play' until someone leaves the floor on a stretcher. The theme here is consistency and some people (fans, coaches) might understand the crew on Friday night is going to be different than the crew seen on Tuesday night and that they will have differing philosophies on what they will call and when. What it boils down to me though is being able to make the tough call in such a situation. Not offering excuses but in a one point loss, people might remember the close call late in the game but how many free throws were missed by the losing team? How many layups? Did someone mouth off and earn a T that gave the winning team the margin of victory? Those are all part of the game, not just one single solitary call towards the end.