Situational Officiating

[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.

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.....

[billyu2]

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.

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.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by billyu2

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.

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

[Rich]

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.

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.....

She probably has about 2 years of experience.

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.

[just another ref]

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.

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

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.

+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).

[Smitty]

Originally Posted by bainsey

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.

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.

[Duffman]

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.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Duffman

I think it's better let the game be decided in regulation than OT.

I don't think this is relevant.

[Texas Aggie]

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.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by bainsey

One of the biggest myths, and the biggest in my book

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

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

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

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

Originally Posted by AllPurposeGamer

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.

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.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

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

Originally Posted by bainsey

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

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

[JetMetFan]

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.

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.....

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.

[JugglingReferee]

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.

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.....

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?