Situational Officiating
 

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.

I come in hard with a block call and sell it. 1 and 1 and A1 makes front end and missed 2nd. A up 1 and ends up winning the game 31-30!

D2 official was observing said with the game tied late in game, you need to keep the situation in mind before making the block call.

Her Advice: Pass on the call and let game be decided in OT

Comments please.....

How did you judge similar contact earlier in the game? If you passed on it earlier then your observer was likely correct. If you called similar contact a foul earlier than good for you for being consistent.

She probably has about 2 years of experience. :D

I don't buy that nonsense, regardless of who it comes from. If it's a foul early, it's a foul late. And vice versa.

Would the crew have made this call mid-third quarter? If so, it's a foul at the end of the game.

Or, possibly the point was that this contact could easily be ignored at any time, but since the call was made in this situation where the resulting free throw provided the winning margin, the questionable call is even more questionable.

As Rich & Billy said: if you and your partner hadn't made a call like that the entire game, under 30 seconds in a tie game wasn't the time to do it. If you had - and since it was a girls' JV game my guess is it probably came up a time or two - then you did what you needed to do. If it was a foul 30 seconds into the game, it's a foul with 30 seconds left in the game.

I officiate college basketball as well (D3) and I understand what the person who observed you is saying but only to a point. In my conference we're told the same thing I wrote earlier: call your game. If we're consistent then our assignor will back us up.

Sometimes It's A Chess Game At The End ...
 

Good advice. Possible exceptions are those late game intentional unintentional fouls, or unintentional intentional fouls.

If that contact was called earlier in the game, then it's a foul now as well. If it wasn't called earlier on, then pass on it now as well.

You mentioned "sell it". Why did you feel that you needed to sell this call? Was it close? Was it a situation not called yet in this game?

If you determined that there was sufficient contact to cause dribbler to lose balance, lose the ball, you made the right call. Defense has to know when to back off. Im saying good call.

:eek:

Did B coach say anything? i.e. "That wasn't a foul in the first quarter?"

Lots of things besides OT can happen in 26.9 seconds.

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?

Felony or misdemeanor? If it's a felony, that's easy...you made the right call regardless of the observer's opinion. If it's a misdemeanor...she may have a point, but the others here that have mentioned consistency have very valid points too.

I'm not a big fan of "passing" on anything in the last minutes of a close game. Making those tough calls are the reason we get a paycheck.

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.

+1

I touched on this recently. One of the biggest myths (and the biggest in my book) is, "you don't make that call at that point in the game." This sounds like the advice Rook was given, and I think it's wrong.

I've been taught that time and score do not affect the way we call games, ever. (Okay, maybe middle school games with 30-point margins.) The game is decided by the totality of the score, never by one late call (despite our memory capacities).

While that may be mostly true (I don't agree with it being the biggest myth), it doesn't mean the call was correct - we'd need to see video to know if he should have made that call or not. The advice, however, was horrible. If the observer had said something to the affect of he shouldn't have made the call because it didn't disadvantage the dribbler, that I could understand.

I think it's better let the game be decided in regulation than OT. If the foul occured with :30 seconds left the other team had plenty of time and opporutnity to score and in the game in regulation. The game was decided by the fact that THEY couldn't get it done, not because YOU blew a whistle with 30 seconds to go.

I don't think this is relevant.

I simply meant that officials are under no obligation to make sure close games go to, and are decided in overtime.

I agree with that.

My HS coach once taught me that if the game was decided late by an officials decision it was my own damn fault for letting the game be that close to begin with. I wish more coaches would teach that lesson.

Illegal contact?

He's partially correct.

Your coach's message is spot on, in that, if you score more points, a late call doesn't affect your goal of winning as much. A game is always decided by the totality of play -- 32 minutes (overtime notwithstanding).

A game is never decided by one call or one play. Everything that happened prior to a late call affects the outcome just as much as that call. Our brains can only take in so much, so naturally, everything gets magnified in the last few minutes. In reality, though, when a game is close, something you kicked in the first quarter could affect the outcome just as much as the end. The big difference is, few people will remember the beginning, and are far more likely to get caught up in the drama at the end.

1) We called this same type of block a couple of times early in game.

2) The dribbler was slowed up by the contact by did not lose dribble or hit the floor.

3) Because of the tied score very late in game and it being a Rivilary..felt need to come in strong.

4) No complaints from anyone..including coaches or fans on the call

5) Team won game by making clutch free throw

Thanks for all the great advice..will keep this all in mind when faced again with similar circumstances:)

Then perhaps the evaluator might need to re-evaluate her philosophy. Definitely a good learning experience for you.

I've Just Got The One List ...
 

You've got a whole book? Are there pictures?

I'd say it's more that a team at the end doesn't have as much of a chance to recover from a mistake/missed called at the end of the games than at the beginning of the game.

Yes, but you're too young to see them.

Maybe, but that doesn't discount the fact that an officiating error in the first half of game can still affect the outcome of a game that ends with a 1-2 point margin. The spirit and intensity that often goes with basketball will cause people to say, "we'll overcome that," but when you look at it objectively and without passion (which isn't easy to do), the error still remains.

Or, Maybe, Jurassic Referee ???
 

So there's a centerfold? Is it Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.?

In reality a call you kick in the last 2 minutes is going to affect future assignments far more than a call you kick in the 1st half.

You kick a call in the first half and your supervisor will likely chalk it off as a brain-fart or a temporary lapse in concentration. Kick a call in the last 2 minutes of a nail-biter then the supervisor may begin to question whether you can handle the pressure.

Yep, and the fact is, costing a team two points in the first quarter does not have the same effect as improperly waving off a buzzer beater.

Exactly right. Those that say "a foul in the first half is the same as a foul at the end" are absolutely correct -- but the corollary to this is that a mistake in the first half isn't going to be viewed the same as a mistake at the end of the game.

Perception is reality in many cases. One thing I noticed as the years go on is that we get to the end in a close game and I'm the calmest person in the house. That doesn't happen overnight.

+1

Just ask the crew from that Big East tournament game about the last 20 seconds of their game (some questionable calls and the blatant missed OOB call) and if they would of rather had that occur at the end of the first half or at the end of the game...and ask the assignor if he cares more that it occurred at the end of the game or not.

Coming in late...

I don't know, I didn't see the contact...but, I say, shake your head up and down when the veteran is telling you something...she might have actually been correct. (maybe not philosophically, but about the contact)

Afterall...you did say you had to SELL it.

Rivalry Game
 

Interesting use of the term "rivalry" here. A few games back (Boys JV) the HC, during a time out, asked me if I realized this was a "rivalry" game. I wondered what the coach expected to gain from telling me that. Did he expect that I would call the game differently for that reason? To my knowledge we work from one rule set regardless of the game circumstances.

I think you need to be extra alert for sportsmanship issues during a rivalry game.

Right on...these "types of games" can get a little rougher. Many times the players know each other and there could be issues from the past.

Perhaps, but it was a well played game to that point with nothing out of the ordinary going on and, without putting too much emphasis on this, it was a JV game. I could see where the varsity game later on might have a little more emotion surrounding it but not the sub varsity.

Went To A Fight And A Basketball Game Broke Out ...
 

Euphemism for, "Watch out for a fight".

Plato's peculiar obsession for deductive validity does not bear admiration: it would rule out virtually all of natural and social science, and undermine the justification of almost everything we think we know about the universe.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. :)

I Need A Few Aspirin ...
 

Just exactly what language are you speaking? I'm getting a headache trying to figure out what you're trying to say.

And what does Play-Doh have to do with basketball?

FWIW....
Earlier this season in a BJV game a HC mentioned it being a rivalry game when he felt an IF should have been called. His point was (and in thinking back on it later I thought it had some merit) that often "stuff" that goes on in the JV game carries over to the varsity game. Varsity is sitting in the stands watching the game, certain JV players from both teams also dressing for varsity, fans and students from both schools caught up in the importance of winning both games etc., etc.

I've made those sorts of calls, so I know where you are coming from, but the closer you get to the end of a very close game, you have to resist the urge to call fouls far from the basket. Absolute rule? Hell no. Its just a guide -- someone gets dusted and you make the call even if in the parking lot. But in general, the viewpoint of advantage/disadvantage CAN and DOES change as the game moves on and you want to keep what you do out of it as much as you can. When you are needed, you step in and make the call. Otherwise, don't.

What you called in the first half may or may not have a bearing on what you call later. Did you miss the earlier call? Were you attempting to clean something up (which never works below quality girls varsity, in my view)? You can't make an absolute saying that if you called it early you must call it late with 2 seconds left in a tie game.