Foul Call
 

Watching a game just before mine. A1 goes up for a shot in the lane and there is contact by B1. The contact is a pure judgement call. I would have called a foul but I would not criticize others for not calling it. On the initial contact, the ref had nothing. The ball bounced around on the rim two or three times and then bounced off. At this point the ref called a foul. I asked the ref after the game if he intentionally held his whistle to see if the ball went in or not. He said yes, that's exactly what he did. The ref said if the ball had gone in, he would not have called a foul. Is this an accepted practice? For contact that is marginal but could be a foul, do others wait to see the shot result before calling a foul?

<disgust> Old way of doing things - a foul is a foul. There is a difference between letting a play start/develop/finish and waiting to see if the ball goes in.

Never

It is to some. And yes the ball going in matters to some. Also it is about having a slow whistle, he might have been thinking if the shot was affected by the contact, which would be the appropriate process to decide if a foul actually occured. I know I rarely call a foul without some consideration to what was the result of the contact. The ball might be through the basket before I blow the whistle in some of my calls.

Peace

The contact must be judged when it happens. The bounce of the ball on the rim is not an indicator of what is or is not a foul.

I would be slow on the whiste if there were a player dribbling to his basket and was grabbed at about the foul line or in to prevent a layup. On that shot I would delay the whistle. Or also for a T situation on the defense if there were a shot about to happen I would delay the whistle to not take away the advantage of the offensive player.

But no not on a situation described in this thread. You are asking for confrontation if I read this correctly.

I try to determine if the contact altered the shooter's motion in any discernible way. To process this, it may take a moment, but I don't use the shot's success or failure to decide that call.

As described, I abandoned this approach years ago.

But I have had and still do have a patient whistle if the play dictates it. Iow, I will judge what the player's intent and success were and sometimes will have a delayed whistle.

There can be many other factors as well....

What is the level, High School, AAU, Rec, Travel?

What is the score and/or time left in the game?

Like all bball calls everything is a factor.

I have made the mistake of calling a foul on the losing team in a blowout with little time left and felt like a fool. Trying not to let that happen again.

I don't believe that any of the items that you list should be factors in an official deciding to call a foul. :(