Avoiding 3-person follies
 

Hi guys. I am doing a three-man game Friday night, and am looking for some advice. I have studied the three-person section of the (NFHS) Officials Manual thoroughly, and watched a few mechanics videos online. What I am looking for is this: what do you wish you knew the first time you did three-man?

How to do 3 man. :) Seriously the 1st time and still some now I wish I was more comfortable on when to move as the L. My 1st time I hung my crew out to dry a few times by switching to late.

Just a few I worked on early:

- Do a good pre-game.
- Know your primary and overlapping areas. Don't reach!
- Try to be a storng-C.
- On a double whistle, hold to see what your P will do - signal or defer (avoid the blarge)
- Have good communications with your partners - especially eye contact.
- Be aware of when it's time to move (I was late with several rotations and switches).

Good luck!

What does that mean? I hear people say this all of the time.

Officiate first and worry about the three-person stuff second. Your partners will adjust to any rotation-type errors.

Think "over rotate" instead of "under rotate".

Get the off-ball stuff. Expand your area to help with ball screens. Look through the players to help with low-post stuff on the far side where L an T can get straightlined.

If you're the C, it often means that the ball has probably settled on the side of the court opposite from you. This means most of the players and the ball are outside of your primary area of responsibility. You may have the tendency to relax.

But you still have lots of responsibility. You're responsible for screens, for cutters, for 3-seconds, for the post player on the opposite block who curls away from the Lead. In NCAA, you have responsibility to "help" on RA plays if the Lead has a player control foul. You have dual responsibility for the shot clock. You have weak-side rebounding and BI/GT responsibility. In transition, you have primary responsibility for everything between the 3-point arcs.

If the ball is on your side, but the Lead hasn't rotated yet, take the primary defender all the way to the basket. Have a whistle, but don't signal if there's a crash. You have secondary responsibility for end line out-of-bounds calls if the Lead is screened.

As I said, have a whistle, but don't give a signal if there is a crash in the paint. On run-of-the-mill fouls, if we have a double-whistle, I prefer to have the C take it to the table; mostly just to keep him/her involved. But don't give that preliminary signal, just to be safe.

On top of that, the C normally has a great look on pull-up jumpers in the lane and other shots that originate in the lane. Make sure you step down and be prepared to officiate those.

All good advice.

I will second what Bob said....

Don't get so worried about where you are supposed to be and when you are supposed to move that you forget to officiate the ball game.

Where I was supposed to go since I learned in the dark ages (i.e., the early 90s) when all three officials switched on each foul. Now it's pretty straightforward. I assume you're doing NFHS so when you call a foul, you end up tableside. If you forget, look at your where your partners are then fill in the hole.

Tableside is the NFHS mechanic, just like NCAAW.

Thanks. Shows how long it's been since I worked three-person regularly in NFHS. I changed it in my previous post.

Best advice I got for when to rotate on Lead...if you are looking at a play across the paint from where you are standing then you should probably (not always) be rotating.

Don't forget you're there to ref the game first and 3-person mechanics are secondary. My first few times I was worried more about where to be and forgot I had a job to do.