how many fouls is too many?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Rich

Not always. If a school starts a JV game with 7 minute quarters at 5:50PM, there's no reason a V game can't start by 7:30PM. Sometimes, the officials *can* help keep things moving.

Tonight? I agree. The 7:15PM listed time is a joke. I'll find out what time the JV game was scheduled for and report back tomorrow. Wouldn't shock me if it was 5:45PM or even 6PM. You can't put any of that on the officials, especially since there's a minimum of 20 minutes between the JV and varsity games.

But if history is consistent....

Last year I worked a F/JV DH, three OTs between them, plus it was senior night. 7:30 V didn't start til close to 9.

Most times, the V games start on time around here, though, and the JV games are 8 min quarters scheduled 90 minutes prior to V tip.

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by Moosie74

The players will adjust to the officials style if you let them but there has to be a consistency established for that to happen.

I've heard for years, "Call the fouls; the players will adapt."

However, this isn't always the case.

I had a JVG last Friday night that had about 50 fouls. It wasn't really an overly aggressive game. It was what I call "players trying to play above their level." Consequently, there's a fair amount of bumping, handchecking, and simply unnecessarily advantageous contact. What's more, the girls weren't learning from the calls. They just kept going at the same pace, and it was working for the home team, who won 46-22 (even though three home players fouled out).

Cut to Monday afternoon, MS girls. These players learned. One example was a first-quarter rebounding displacement foul I called. The girl looked at her coach and said, "but I was boxing out!" (Sound familiar?) I didn't have a displacement foul on that team the rest of the game. In fact, the contact cleaned up so much, we didn't have a bonus situation until overtime, and it was a well-played game for that level, so I enjoyed the extra frame.

Oh, the only time I see 7 minute quarters here is in middle school. About half of middle schools do 8 minute quarters. All HS levels here do 8 minutes.

[grunewar]

Continuing with the hijack.....

I've had several games this season already with an announced starting time of 7:45 - which pushes us even later than normal of course.

The other night I had a great 2 x OT thriller!

Of course, getting home at 1015 (with a wake-up call of 0400) is NOT so great!

[VaTerp]

Originally Posted by eyezen

First of all pay no attention to those varsity guys. They are worried about one thing and one thing only...their game starting on time and you are holding them up.

This is bad advice.

Do varsity officials want to start on time? Of course. But to say that is the ONLY motivation for their comments is a bad assumption.

My association takes evaluations of JV officials pretty seriously. Most of us make a concerted effort to give constructive feedback.

As far as the OP I think you should consider a few things:

42 fouls in one half of basketball is not "a lot" of fouls its is a RIDICULOUSLY high amount. Hard to imagine even in the most physical of contests at the JV level that that many fouls was warranted.

Your partner AND the varsity officials watching ALL thought you had too many whistles. Maybe you were right and they were all wrong but I've usually found that when it's me vs three, four other people maybe I should reconsider my position.

You said you were "banging them every time to send a message." What message are you trying to send? You called a enough fouls to put both teams in the double bonus TWICE. If they don't get the message when the other team is shooting two FTs for every foul then again, what message are you trying to send.

Basketball is a contact sport. There is going to be some level of contact. You have to get some of the things you mentioned but you can also allow players to play through some contact if it's not advantageous.

[zm1283]

Calling fouls when someone breaths on someone else isn't exclusive to JV officials. There are plenty of varsity officials that do the same.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by zm1283

Calling fouls when someone breaths on someone else isn't exclusive to JV officials. There are plenty of varsity officials that do the same.

At what level do you think it is more prevalent?

Here the order of "eliteness" is BV, GV, BJV, GJV. So as a general rule of thumb your BV games are going to have the top crew for any particular set of games.

I remember one day waiting to do my BV game watching the GV crew loligag for an entire game. Not getting teams out of huddles, taking forever to get them lined up for free throws, talking to each other during an injury stoppage and not realizing the injured player had been long ago removed from the court, etc. This was after their game started late b/c they BOTH got the start time wrong (even though the GV games had a standard start time and both officials were veterans).

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

At what level do you think it is more prevalent?

Here the order of "eliteness" is BV, GV, BJV, GJV. So as a general rule of thumb your BV games are going to have the top crew for any particular set of games.

I remember one day waiting to do my BV game watching the GV crew loligag for an entire game. Not getting teams out of huddles, taking forever to get them lined up for free throws, talking to each other during an injury stoppage and not realizing the injured player had been long ago removed from the court, etc. This was after their game started late b/c they BOTH got the start time wrong (even though the GV games had a standard start time and both officials were veterans).

I'm not denying that it's more prevalent at the lower levels. Around here we don't have separate JV/V officials. The schools play doubleheaders and we work both games. You'll occasionally get a varsity game by itself because one of the teams doesn't have enough players for a JV game, but otherwise we work two games. We have separate freshmen games, and I'm sure that is where it is more prevalent in my area.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by zm1283

I'm not denying that it's more prevalent at the lower levels. Around here we don't have separate JV/V officials. The schools play doubleheaders and we work both games. You'll occasionally get a varsity game by itself because one of the teams doesn't have enough players for a JV game, but otherwise we work two games. We have separate freshmen games, and I'm sure that is where it is more prevalent in my area.

DHs for public school games are rare around here. Usually just done for single-A (smallest schools). So most times we have a crew waiting on another crew to finish up.

[rockyroad]

This thread has turned in to a "bash on other crews" thread for some reason...every single one of us posting on this forum has had games where we didn't do a very good job. Let's quit b!tching about other crews and find something that we can learn from from our own games.

Example: had a GV game two weeks ago where we were shooting double bonus both ways with 1:23 to go in the FIRST quarter. At the end of the quarter we got together and we certainly did not discuss whether the boys game was going to start on time or not. We talked about the fact that we really could not pass on these calls. They literally were playing rugby out there. Rest of the game went smoothly because the players adapted and stopped being stupid.

Boys game started about 20 minutes late. But since we were doing the doubleheader that night we really didn't care that much. We were able to keep that first game under control and nothing stupid happened.

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by rockyroad

They literally were playing rugby out there.

That I doubt, but the point is well taken.

It's not our responsibility to make sure the next game starts on time. Someone is always going to razz you if your game runs long, but that could just be camaraderie. Any official worth his salt will not blame you for doing your job correctly.

[icallfouls]

Way too much. This doesn't even allow players to absorb contact and see if they can play through it. Based on the key words: reaching, handchecking, and arm bars - it sounds like these were all on ball calls. Players were not getting a chance to be players.

At some point the crew needs to let them play.

[SE Minnestoa Re]

Last Friday night--BV. We had to have called 50 fouls. Nobody was adapting at all. Coaches were yelling at their teams for poor defense.

Saturday afternoon--BV--Same officials. First foul called 5 minutes into the game.

I think how the teams want to play will dictate to us how many fouls to call. Play rough and out of control--the scorer will be busy writing down fouls. Play better--less fouls.

[dsqrddgd909]

Originally Posted by icallfouls

Way too much. This doesn't even allow players to absorb contact and see if they can play through it. Based on the key words: reaching, handchecking, and arm bars - it sounds like these were all on ball calls. Players were not getting a chance to be players.

At some point the crew needs to let them play.

To clarify, you don't mean handchecking is never a foul, do you?

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by rockyroad

They literally were playing rugby out there.

Why do people type 'literally' when they literally don't mean literally? It's like they need a word for emphasis and just pick one at random - choosing one that means the opposite of what they mean.

Pet peeve? Yes.

"Literally" is used to tell the reader that the seemingly impossible thing I'm about to say is not meant metaphorically and is not exaggeration ... but is, in fact, EXACTLY true, believe it or not.

They were not, LITERALLY, playing rugby out there.

[icallfouls]

Originally Posted by dsqrddgd909

To clarify, you don't mean handchecking is never a foul, do you?

of course not