double technical

[A Pennsylvania Coach]

Last night's double technical was a hooooorrible call. Mutombo had been clearly looking for a fight for about three or four minutes, then he gets fouled by Claxton, comes up and thinks it's Willis who fouled him, gets in Willis' face, and they both get Ts. Willis just stood there! He even had the sense to walk away from a similar situation just a few possessions earlier. I don't know if the NBA officials are directed to use the double T to calm a game heating up, but a guy has to deserve a T to get one. It's a copout call: "I don't want to affect the game by giving one team a free throw, but I want to look like I'm doing something to control the game so I'll call a double T."

Also, last night in our summer league, we had an official who does a lot of our JV games. One of my freshmen boxed a shooter out rather vigorously and she called her for the foul, which was a good call. Then she called it a shooting foul! I told her the shooter had long since returned to the floor and it wasn't a shooting foul. I even used the phrase "no longer an airborne shooter" hoping the rule book terms would jog her memory. She told me that until all the action at the rim is complete, that it's still a shot so she's still the shooter! We had a nice three-person discussion at halftime (me, her, and her partner) but we couldn't convince her that the try hadn't ended, but the player who was fouled was no longer eligible to collect a shooting foul after returning to the floor.

All the presence in the world wasn't going to help her on this one!