John Adams and Block Charge plays.
 

I've been saying this for years.

The first 15 years I worked basketball, there were too many blocks being called and the message got out that we were punishing good defense. Then it swung way too much in the opposite direction -- charges became the default call even when the elements of drawing a charge weren't all there. Anything close got shipped the other way.

GROUPthink:

I am a dinosaur in the world of basketball officiating but one of my personal friends was the late Ed Ferrigno of Conneticut who was the Rules Interpreter for Connecticut and was considered the one of the foremost expert on Guarding and Screening. And I can assure you that we still do NOT call enough Charges.

MTD, Sr.

Jay Bilas was quoted in the article. He is a good X and O's man but not know the rules. Enough said.

MTD, Sr.

I try to watch as much film as possible and there are a lot of called charges, even at the HS level, that simply aren't. I think many officials aren't refereeing the defense well enough and aren't looking for (1) establishing and (2) maintaining LGP. If it's in the torso and the defender goes down, it's shipped. And that's not always right.

I'm not a dinosaur, but 25 years of working at the HS/college levels doesn't make me a spring chicken, either. No namedropping from me, though. :D

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo told Sporting News during the season he was so weary of seeing charges called he no longer taught the play to his Spartans.

You might be surprised to learn the NCAA men’s basketball rules committee also is on your side. They agree: There are too many charges being called.

This is one of the interesting aspects of the rules committee ... it's made up entirely of coaches, so basically they try to change the rules to suit their coaching styles.

Good topic in the article...but starting it with a reference to Jay Bilas and the rules is not going to give the article any credibility.

Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.: Please Quit (Officiating, Not Smoking) ...
 

While Jay Bilas was credited as leading the charge :D to some degree, the person that is agreeing with him is John Adams. He apparently has the statistics to back it up. So for every college official that means we are going to have to attend the training and call plays according to the principles that they establish if we want to work the Tournament. That information will be passed down through the ranks and will reach the HS level in varying degrees.

It sounds like there is agreement from within all the interested parties, coaches, John Adams and the man with the biggest platform from which to preach Jay Bilas/ESPN.

Like it our not, there will be a change. The way I see it, you can be part of the problem, or you can help others work on the best solution for the game.

I did not read anything in the article that suggested that Adams agreed with Jay Bilas or any of his takes on this situation. I read that he discussed the percentage of what calls were correct or not. Bilas just made a generic comment that had no rules basis or description and that does not mean Adams agrees with him. I would like to hear more from Adams before I would draw that conclusion. After all Adams does post or comment on things the media says and this was never something he openly discussed or made reference to on the NCAA site.

Peace

Nope. But the NCAA Arbiter Site did post some articles about new rules. This article was not referenced or anything about this subject. This is why this current ESPN article and the connection to what Bilas said was silly.

Peace

Billy:

I love it!

MTD, Sr.

Default to "Block"
 

From the responses thus far this seems to be a regional thing. Around here in the land across the lake from Rut the default call, almost universally -- and especially for less experienced officials -- is to "block." Ball watching catches especially the endline official by surprise when contact occurs, and because s/he hadn't assessed the legal or illegal status of the defender, the charge hardly ever gets called. More experienced officials have this pretty much down to a science, with little if any argument from coaches over the accurate calls.
More and more instruction in rules meetings is having a measurable effect on the less experienced officials as they're starting to get the point through diligent off-ball surveillance as Lead.

Glad to see this - one theme I saw emerging in last year's tournament was the high number of B/C situations where I thought defenders were drawing charges without LGP.

MTD, Sr. is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT....we do NOT call enough charges. The lower the level, the worse the problem.

TwoCents:

The check is in the mail. ;)

MTD, Sr.

Disagree. What I generally see from rookies is too many charges - caused by not watching the defense.

Interesting, because I hardly ever see a newer official call a PC foul at all. I think officials in general call too many things on the defense when they do not do anything wrong.

Peace

I think the bigger problem is that they call it one way or the other but what they use as reasoning is not per the rules. I know I still miss block/charge calls but at least I know why I went with the call initially.

Agreed, combined with taking away too many shots on defensive fouls and calling a foul every time a defender so much as touches a shooter, it's in the top three of rookie mistakes I see.

That is a bigger issue than there are too many called. Now if you say that there are incorrect calls OK. But the number should not matter because it is possible that the number could be the teams and players understanding the rule and doing what it takes to get a call. What if for some reason that is the case and the numbers do not change? Is the rules committee going to complain or change the rule then?

Peace

More times than not when I've heard complaints of about charges being called, the call was actually correct.

I think the biggest gripe, even if it is not the stated gripe, with the whole issue is that defenders are increasingly successful at playing for the charge rather than playing to stop the ball and possibly getting a charge. Such an approach....playing for the foul rather than playing the ball....is distasteful to some.

For a long time, many officials, who often incorrectly defaulted to a block unless the offensive player brought a battering ram to the party, were somewhat complicit in satisfying fans' desire to not see "cheap" fouls. Now that officials have started calling the charges that are, by rule, there, people are not happy.

please make sure my check has a "comma" in the dollar amount...:-)

when an official does not watch the defense, he is surprised/caught off-guard when the contact happens. as a result, the vast majority of times a block is called becuase that is what officials "default" to when making calls.

maybe the metric systems' conversion formula in Canada causes more charges to be called up there.....but below the 48th parallel in North America, officials call WAAAAAAAAYYYYY too many blocking fouls.

(btw, officials also wave off too many good baskets when a shooter is fouled because they don't understand when the act of shooting begins. that's for another thread, however.)

This is why I would like to hear from John Adams directly and not what the committee says alone. If Adams feels there are too many charges called, he will reflect that in is information given to the officials on the Arbiter site and at NCAA Meetings. Remember the committee is made up of coaches which is not often the most educated on what officials do or why they do things. Adams might agree that there are charges that were called incorrectly, but I doubt he will totally change the premise of why we call a block/charge in video examples.

Peace