Uniforms in a State Championship Game
 

March 20-22, Alaska held their 1A/2A State Championship basketball tournament. These are the 2 smallest classifications in Alaska. In the 2A Boys Championship game, the "Home" team was assessed a technical foul for wearing jerseys, with 3:27 remaining in the 1st quarter. It appears the TF was assessed due to a request by the director of officials of the tournament, who came and talked to the on court officials during the media timeout.

You can view what happened and hear the commentators take on the situation at this link:

2013 ASAA 2A Boys Basketball Championship Finals-Hooper Bay vs Metlakatla (Event): Alaska: PlayOn! Sports

Fast forward to about the 20:30 point to get to where it all begins.

What would you have done if this was your game? It should be noted that the team that wore the gold jerseys wore the same uniforms as the home team in a game on the first night of the tournament and were NOT assessed a TF. Not sure how often it occurred during the season.

I just googlemapped Hooper Bay and Metlatka. Those two schools are separated by about 2000 miles or more. :eek:

Boy, those kids stood at the lane for a long time.......

"You guys clear out, and go to half-court." :eek:

Thankfully, it didn't "decide the game."

That would make them neighboring towns wouldn't it?;)

Well, apart from not telling the kids they had to stand at half court for the technical free throws...

I would have done what the administrator told me to do. However, if this wasn't being enforced during the entire season let alone the tournament it's a pretty lousy time to start. If the officials had been advised to enforce the rule prior to the tournament and the "home" team coach had been warned prior to the tournament then that's the way life goes.

We have that situation come up every season in NYC with some teams. There are a few that always violate NFHS 3-4-2a (visible manufacturer's logo on the jersey). I didn't have any of them until our citywide playoffs. I e-mailed my assignor and asked whether the league had changed its enforcement policy (i.e., leave it alone) and he said no, so I left it alone.

I would imagine that the team had been warned about it after the first day of wearing the gold uniforms...their choices would be to fly the other uniforms in (about 500 miles away) or risk the T.

We have a couple Alaska refs on the forum...anyone know what actually took place.

Virginia had a couple similar situations. One involved a home team wearing silver instead of white (T assessed before game started) and another where a team had a Nike logo on its jerseys (T assessed at halftime after state commissioner notified alternate official at halftime).

Can you cite the rule that says the kids have to stand at half court for technical free throws?

What could have taken so long? Explain it to the coaches and move on.

BTw--players do not have to stand at "half court!" They just have to be above the foul line extended!

Very similar to what happened here a few years ago with illegal uniforms. Yes, it should have been caught earlier.

He said "apart from...". He knows players do not have to go to the division line during Technical free throws.

Pretty crummy time to start enforcing the rule if it wasn't enforced earlier in the tournament. What I very much dislike is the appearance that someone other than the uniformed officials made the ruling and enforced the penaly. "When discovered" in this case could have been at halftime just as easily as when it was.

Agreed on both points here. I would have been likely to tell the administrator that I wasn't going to enforce it at this point and if he wanted it enforced, he could go and get his stripes on and finish the game for me.

Right call, WRONG TIME!!

No you wouldn't. ;)

Peace

And ,,,
 

... and behind the three point arc.

Only if you were on your farewell tour.

And I do not believe he would do it then. Because he likely would not work the rest of the game or his career would be marred by that incident. Bravado is all that is.

Peace

Hey Rut, come back and tell us when you work your first state tournament.

I have already worked 3. ;)

Peace

In basketball.

You said State Tournament (which is not what we call it but OK). If that is the case I have worked 10 years of those. :D

And when I do in basketball, I would have done something only 3 others have done in this part of the state in the history of the IHSA. So I will be good either way. ;)

And with all that being said, I do not believe you would tell anyone what you suggest. I just do not buy it. The officials in my area did not do that when they were given the same option.

Peace

Not gonna say what I would or wouldn't do but I will say this. The officials boss, whoever he is, should never be stepping in during the game, any game, and saying, "Hey guys, call this," no matter how blatant the mistake, real or imagined, may be.

jmo

So what if the coach brings it to your attention? Is that any different than someone that is overseeing the officials?

Peace

Totally different. ANYONE bringing something to the attention of the officials is not the same as telling them to call (or not call) something. So which one happened here? Did the guy merely bring it to their attention or did he instruct them to make the technical call?

I think you would have to talk to the parties involved to know for sure. I am asking is that situation any different? I am not saying it is the same thing, but if it is brought to your attention and it is clearly a violation of the rules, then why does it matter? I know this is partly philosophical, just asking should it matter how they noticed a rule was violated?

Peace

First, it's hard to believe that the officials had not noticed the jersey color on their own. If that hadn't, no matter who points it out:

"Hey, doesn't the home team have to wear white?"

"By golly, you're right. My bad." TWEET T

I have no problem with this sequence of events. (I have a problem if they really hadn't noticed)

BUT, if they had noticed and had no intention of making the call because their state never does, because it had previously not been enforced in the tournament, or whatever reason, I have a problem with the boss stepping in and insisting on the call.

I could see it being missed if no one ever made a big deal about this in a particular area. I know in my state they made a big deal of uniform issues so officials were always on edge if we did not see something. In this area it is possible the attitude was totally opposite and no one ever made a big deal out of this, especially in tournament situations which does not often classify clearly who the home team is going to be. I guess I can live with either way and certainly could live with it in that situation. I certainly would not tell the administrator to pound sand.

Peace

Feel like this reaction/response is taking a situation to MACH 1 for no good reason...and a stand that would be ultimately pointless if one your partner(s) called the T himself.

One year at our state tournament, the director of officials told us at the officials dinner (on the night before the tournament) that we did not have to worry about uniform or equipment rules.... they would take care of it all and instruct us to call a T if necessary. Man, that was nice to not have to be the uniform police. We didn't mind one bit.

Would anyone on this board, were they serving in a supervisory capacity "over" other officials ever do what that gentlemen did? That is - walk onto the court in full view of everyone in the gym and tell the officials what rules to enforce and then come onto the court a second time to get involved in a floor discussion with one or both coaches.

If I felt I had to do something I would do it at halftime. If the tournament officials had been told beforehand to address it and didn't then I'd be annoyed with them in the locker room but not to the point that I'd basically call them out in public.

Exactly. Whether we're doing our day jobs or officiating, we all have bosses. If the boss says you do something -- immoral orders notwithstanding -- you do it.

However, I have to believe part of the delay is the referee of this crew asking the admin, "you want us to call this NOW?" If the ASAA let it go for this long into the season, it would certainly be a legitimate question.

I'm giving props to the PA announcer, though, for a thorough explanation of the technical foul. Most places I know are so stringent on their announcers, that they would allow no announcement of the T, or simply, "technical foul, (name of team), team's second of the half." Fans have a right to know why a T is called, especially on the state's biggest stage.

3 pages and nobody brought up the fact the officials were not switching on fouls.

I didn't watch anything else on the video but the play in question.

Why would anybody want to watch a game that was 1-0 four plus minutes into the game? ;)

Agreed, but they probably owed it to the coaches to come and explain after they instructed the officials to make the call. If I was an official on the court, I would expect as much.

A couple of things I have learned:

1. Guys not taking care of business in prior games end up serving pie like in "The Help" to subsequent officials.

2. How one guy on this thread has ended up on ignore lists.

I was actually going to ask you about this with respect to your NY ch game at MSG because the winning team wore illegal jerseys, but I was unjustly banned for a few days by an over-zealous mod.
Btw belated congrats on working that!

Aiming for another stay in the Penalty Box?

ô!ô
 

As this board has increase in believability new more strict moderators have picked up the pace.

Some of the fun is gone and the LCD posters have won.

But the site is much better.

Just sayin'

Tee

It was a bit of an inside joke. When Nevada got his timeout last time, he created an account called "Penalty Box" to circumvent the timeout. That added to the timeout, after we eliminated the new account.

(We *want* people to have fun here, but if the only way people can have fun is to personally attack people, this is not the place for them. Likewise, we've been told by a majority of the people that have PMed us that keeping the boards reasonably on-topic is also important, which is why we set up the Off Topic board -- I'd really like people to post more to that board and have it take off as a group of officials sitting at the bar shooting the bull, but that hasn't happened yet, either.)

Goon! :D

Thanks, and yeah, it's an annual thing. Normally we're told at the preseason meeting what to do (nothing) but we didn't have one because of Sandy.

When something like this is within the "family" it's not an issue, though 99% of NYC teams do have legal jerseys so I can't see how it's fair to them but I'm not the one making the decision. However, some of NYC's more prominent teams play games outside the PSAL, as is the case with prominent teams from other leagues around the country. If the PSAL coaches are shocked when they walk into a gym in another state and catch a T for the illegal jerseys that's their problem.

This site is 100% better without all the extra unnecessary stuff. +1,000,000 on the renewed focus to basketball officiating.

Just like in officiating, you can keep blaming everyone and everything else —*or you can take a minute and look in the mirror and self-evaluate and see if there is anything you can do differently to achieve the results you'd like.

Now that is informative! I wondered why my account wouldn't work when the ban period had passed.
So let me now tell you and the other mods involved who seem to think that they know everything that you are mistaken about who created that account.
Secondly, I did NOT personally attack any other poster or call anyone names. I did strongly criticize the attitude expressed by a poster which I considered to be unprofessional and not proper for an official to display or carry onto the court.

After what I just learned from your post, I'm going to take some time to consider whether I will continue posting in this forum or not. If this new and strict policy is the way that it is going to be, it is not an improvement and not in the spirit of the late JR.

Keep On Postin' ...
 

Nevadaref: Please stick around. I don't recall any of your posts, in my opinion, as being offensive, or impolite. But, then again, I'm not a moderator, nor do I play one on television.

Note: If you leave, who will head our archive department?

I don't think mods should be talking about bans, and they certainly shouldn't be changing the terms of a suspension without informing the poster. This is disappointing. Nevadaref I hope you stay but I understand your frustration.

I didn't know you were even suspended....and I don't think I ever seen anything from you that should have got you suspended.

Well this doesn't look like it's going to end well at all. On Nevada's behalf, I can think of 4 or 5 others that post that seem more offensive and personal. I know this board belongs to the owners who can do whatever they wish, but sheesh...Time-outs & temporary bans? It's not like he's posting porn.

Have you stayed at a Holiday Inn Select recently? That might work

Interesting.

I will be quite honest and admit that Nevada and I have had quite a few disagreements on this forum...but I really can't remember the last time he slammed someone on a personal level. On the other hand, there are several of the new mods who do it fairly frequently. So who is moderating the moderators?

Well you have a right to your opinion, but let not act like he has never went after someone personally that he did not agree with. He has and usually is self-righteous about it.

And I have been penalized for conflicts with him directly, but let us not act like no one has ever felt his comments were over the top. I cannot speak on this specific manner but people have seen it happen. And when the mods tell you something if you want to stay then you better listen or suffer the consequences. This place is pretty simple, you cannot say what you want and when you want. First Amendment has nothing to do with this situation and just like anything we do in officiating, it is up to us personally to decide what goes over the top and the same goes for the mods.

Peace

Nevada was the one who brought it up in public.

Would it be too much to as that the posts not relevant to the original post in this thread be moved to a new thread regarding Nevadaref's timeout??

No matter what we do here, it's going to be criticized. I could delete the off topic stuff, but that would be interpreted a certain way, I'm sure.

I'm going to close the thread. If there's more to say on the original topic, feel free to open a new thread.

And Adam's right. When Nevada said he was "unjustly banned for a few days by an over-zealous mod" he opened the door for me to describe the nature of the suspension (and, gang, we have tools to trace traffic to the board - don't pee on my head and tell me it's raining).

I would've never said anything about it otherwise and, quite frankly, had forgotten all about it.

In before the lock. :D

I will say this much, as one guilty of channeling my inner JR, we have called each other out. I have issued a couple of apologies and deleted my own comments. We're all human, after all. Often times, the consequences arise from the response to being called out (this is not any info about any specific action we've taken.)