I wonder do officials in many cases even know what "Referee the Defense" is? This was not even close.

Peace

Agreed that with the location of the play, the center should have first shot at the play. The lead is blowing as if it were his primary. Second, he was obviously not refereeing the defense or simply guessed at the play.

BTW - what is up with the weird official's jerseys?

If they don't come out with new shirts every few years, how do you expect any of the supply companies to make any money?

Besides, we need a way to identify the elite officials, not just those wearing regular stripes.

:)

So True...they look like old NBA jerseys. I am hanging on to my old collared shirts for when they come back in style. :)

Well this is in transition, there is no "primary" at that time. He could blow this and I would expect him to have a call, but I think he did not referee the play properly if he cannot identify a clearly stopped and standing defender.

Peace

What's with those NBA issue officiating shirts?

Those look like the shirts the state final officials in Texas have been wearing.

We use those shirts, or a similar one made by Smitty, for all of the high level AAU I do for one of my assignors. I actually like the fit and look of them much better than the traditional black and whites I have.

As for the call, I agree with some previous observations that in transition I think the L has just as good a look if not better than the C on this play. He should have been refereeing the defense and had an easy PC on this one.

Also, the C does seem to be too slow to accelerate at the beginning of the play but not sure if he caught up or not and what kind of angle he ended up with or if he had a whistle as well.

That looked like a pretty easy player control foul to me! wonder if coach was going bonkers?

Not necessarily passing judgement with this statement: it looks as though the new L made the blocking call "on the run", whereas, the C seemed to be hustling to the play and was in the proper position. He was on the move too, but was moving in the same direction as the play. The L was moving towards the baseline while looking over his shoulder more or less to make the call.

I don't get your point. A lot of us do this several times a game and have to make the decision to 1) make a call, 2) make the necessary position adjustments to keep from getting stacked or 3) don't make a call because it would be guessing.

Can we agree that it is possible to run to a position and see that a defender is standing in one spot? If so, even though the official was stacked, he should have see the offensive player go to and thru the defender. I look at this as not using sound play-calling mechanics: did the defender obtain LGP, was the defender in the offensive player's path, did the defender maintain LGP, etc.

Hey, we all get plays wrong and this one would surely be graded IC.

Just an innocuous observation. Could it have affected the calling official's ability to see the play? Maybe. He's probably a much better official than me, though. In any event, I agree with your assertions. Although, I'm always more comfortable assessing block/charge action when I'm more or less standing still. Not always a luxury we have, though, as you mentioned.

Just putting this out there...
 

Regarding who should have what on this play, here's the citation from the NFHS Officials' Manual on transition coverage:

I'm not too upset with the speed at which the C moved with the play. At the point of contact he was at the top of the FT circle which is within the range a C can cover when play is in the half court. Regardless, L shouldn't have been first whistle on this.

Exactly.

Worked a game last week where we had several blocking fouls against one team. Coach asked each one of us (after different fouls) why they were blocks.

Each of us answered that the defender moved forward after the offensive player went airborne. Easy to see if you go through the progression, as you mentioned.

My 2 cents
 

I'm very comfortable with the L making the call here. If you look at this entire play, he has one defender that will make this play difficult and it's the kid who attempts to take the charge.

The C doesn't have a better look than the L and I would say has a slightly worse look.

From the angle of the camera, it looks like a player control, 100%. However, it could have been that the defender leaned his upper torso into the pathway of the offensive player and we can't see that from this angle.

So I'm not so quick to judge Incorrect Call from this limited angle. With that said, I didn't like that the L was late at arriving to the spot and never got settled to receive the play.