NCAA mechanics
 

Why are men's and women's NCAA mechanics so different? NFHS is the same for boys and girls...what's the deal?

NCAAM & NCAAW have different rules committees so each wants to handle things its own way. They even have different interpretations of the same play situations at times, some laid out in the case book, some not.

NFHS has one rulemaking body so everything comes from one source.

I can still remember our assignor coming in on our intial season meeting and distributing ONE set of rulesbooks instead of the traditional two sets - one for boys and one for girls. It seemed strange at the time. Girls basketball has always been awful but it was atrocious those first few years of full court basketball.

How Far We, as Women, Have Come!
 

Are you dating yourself with a veiled reference of when girls' basketball was played with six players per team, with two "rovers"?

Depending on the state, this isn't that long ago.

Wait, never mind. It's been at least 20 years now everywhere.

Exactly, except...
Some states still have separate governing organizations for girls sports. As such, they tend to use different adaptations.

Iowa, for example, up until just a few years ago, allowed the coaching box for girls but the boys' coaches could not use it. There were quite a few other adaptations in place for the girls long after they abandoned the half court game (such as when the arrow would switch on an AP throw in.)

It is more simple than that. The NCAA Women's side hitched their wagon to the NBA philosophy when the WNBA was created in the mid-90s. So the people that often worked WNBA games were people highly influential in the Women's side and convinced everyone to change their coverage areas and even signals. The Men's side as always tried to be a little different and most powers that be do not embrace NBA level or their style of play.

Peace

Women play basketball and there are different mechanics for the officials? Who knew and who cares!

Are the NCAAW more different from NCAAM in rules or mechanics? Why not consolidate the rules bases?

I understand the womens game is different, but is it so different it requires a whole different set of rules and accompanying mechanics?

They are not going to consolidate the genders because they do not want to. It is that simple. They do not care if the levels have different rules as you have different styles of play and execution. It is not like officials are going to be working both sides, so why change when you do not have to?

Peace

Why do they not want to?

Why not? If you standardize the rules and mechanics, and provided the checks are the same, wouldn't women's ball attract higher quality officials that would work both men's and women's?

The checks aren't the same. So now you would not only change the rules but also the pay scales. And people already complain about officials working too many days, now they can throw in a couple of women's or men's games to completely fill their schedules completely.

I hope you are saying this in jest. I really dont think the rules and mechanics are what is keeping people from not doing women's basketball. More likely is that many officials think women's basketball sucks and wouldnt try to work it if the pay was double what they paid for the men's games.


About 8 years or so ago hear, one of the biggest conferences in the Chicago suburbs (33 schools at the time), fired their assignment coordinator. One of the reasons the person who replaced him was hired was that he agreed to do both boys and girls assignments and told the athletic directors and coaches he would make the officials working boys varsity games work girls varsity games as well. He found out very quickly that he wasnt going to be able to keep this promise. Over 95% of the boys varsity officals told him he could keep their boys games if it meant they had to do girls games as well, they would just fill their schedules with games in other leagues. Needless to say, he had no choice but to give guys just boys games otherwise he would have been the assignment guy for 1 season when the boy's coaches saw that they wouldnt get any of the officials they wanted because the assignor was trying to make them work girls games.

I am sure some guys who did not get many men's assignments would work women's, if it were not for the fact that officiating the women's game is so much different. For a decent men's official who only gets 15 assignments because of his lack of seniority, I think he might work women's games to fill in his schedule if not for the rules/mechanics gap.

As someone who works under different codes for BV and GV (NFHS vs. NCAAW modified) it's not a case of "oh I can't get boys assignments so I'm going to work girls." I worked boys only and had a good schedule but just wanted more games so I started doing girls' ball. If you can call a game, you can call a game. Dealing with the rules differences is more a speed bump than a road block.

In college it's as much a matter of assignors/supervisors don't want you doing both.