Maybe I shouldn't play...
 

I don't play a ton of basketball and I'm not particularly athletic, so my friends and I put together a team to play in the intramural league (NFHS rules, or so they tell me) at our university. I'm a pretty even-keeled person. I don't get frustrated easily, which is why officiating suits me well. I do often get frustrated when I'm playing sports, though. So when the other team got their third or fourth breakaway in the first eight minutes of our game today, I was a bit frustrated and gave the kid a solid push to the back to prevent the basket. I fully expected the official to come up with an intentional foul, but instead they decided to call a technical foul. :eek: Technical fouls in this league require us to play a man down for two minutes. Not only that, but they gave two free throws for the shooting foul plus two more free throws for the technical foul. :eek: Then they awarded the ball to our opponents on the baseline where the foul was committed rather than the division line. :eek: Yeah, I know they're recreational officials getting paid minimum wage and I probably shouldn't expect anything different, but if I had known that they were going to call a technical foul for live-ball contact, I would never have done it. Oh well. Maybe I should just stick to officiating. :p

From what you described I might be going flagrant and tossing you for shoving a player in the back.

Really? Sounded like one of the usual circumstances one calls an INT/FF1 for...a breakaway lay-up where the defender pushes the opponent in the back and causes excessive contact.

Yep, but pulling this stunt in an intramural game is just inviting disaster. They may have been instructed to call it that way to cut down on fights.

Well I can't comment on how the officials handled the play as I don't know all their rules. It's obvious they don't follow pure NFHS rules. I was just commenting on the play itself. There was nothing in the play, that indicated to me, that it needed to be upgraded to a flagrant/FF2.

What's a FF2?

Player on a breakaway gets shoved in the back could very well, and easily, be excessive. We don't need a punch or an elbow to qualify a flagrant foul.

Flagrant foul 2 (more accurately flagrant 2 personal foul)...NCAA equivalent/terminology that equals NFHS' flagrant foul. And by virtue of saying it was excessive contact means it's intentional. Now you're right that a play like this, in general, could be flagrant but nothing in the OP suggested that IMO.

They certainly wouldn't have been wrong to toss me given the level of play. Definitely wouldn't have been flagrant in a competitive NFHS game, though. Simply intentional. Admittedly, it was embarrassing for me. Still upset that I let my frustrations get the best of me. :o It was just the administration following the incident that bothered me more than anything.

I kinda like the power play idea for IM...

this will be my second year doing intramurals, its amazing how quickly things escalate between teams who really have nothing to play for. The league is free and the prize for winning is a tshirt. :/ I agree with the flagrant here. Get the trouble maker out of the building.

I had a ball thrown at my head this year after calling a technical, its crazy how seriously some of these guys (and gals) take it