Hey Chuck...

[Nevadaref]

Originally posted by A Pennsylvania Coach

Wow, really? You don't ever call a foul on a made basket?

If I picked this up from somebody doing my game, I'd flip out. Maybe we are going at a player who we want to get in foul trouble. ("Now team, if you get contact from #33, make sure to miss the shot or the ref won't call the foul.")

It is a foul when the contact is illegal or puts the shooter at a disadvantage. Even disadvantaged shooters make the shot sometimes. Just because the result was a made shot doesn't mean that at a disadvantage didn't take place.

Also, aren't you setting a tone that illegal contact on the shooter is allowed? I know as a player, when I do something that doesn't get called, I'll do it more and more.

Easy there Coach! Remember the context of what Chuck and I were discussing. These are plays from one of Chuck's games at a camp in which there was some contact, but not a great deal, either as a player was making a move past his opponent for a clear scoring opportunity or as a player made a lay-in. His partner called a foul on the play. The evaluator, J.B. Caldwell, a D1 official in the SEC, questioned a quick whistle on these type of plays with comments such as, "Could he have finished that play if you'd let it go?" "If you'd held your whistle for half a second, could he have made a lay-up instead of shooting 1-and-1?"
Now while in my last post I did write the the defensive player "bumps/hits" the offensive player, I assumed that Chuck would take it in the same context as JB was talking about and understand that I mean only a little bump or a flick on the arm as the player powers to the basket.
JB was gently telling this official at that camp that he thought the contact on that play was not severe enough to prevent normal offensive movements (4-19-1) or put that player at a disadvantage. In fact, calling the foul too quickly may have taken away an advantage or scoring opportunity from the offense.
All good officials use the advantage/disadvantage philosophy to some degree, and that is all we are discussing here.
Of course, if the contact is a solid whack or the bump/push is hard enough to make me believe that the offensive player now has a significantly harder shot, I WILL call the foul whether the goal is successful or not.
Lastly, this discussion also is much more pertinent to boys' games than to girls'due to the amount of physical contact the players can be expected to handle.

Originally posted by mick
PACoach,
Nevadaref seems to think outside the lines from time to time.
mick

Mick is right here. I do tend to take a different approach at times. I like to push the envelope on wording of the rules, philosophy, and human interactions in the game.
For example, you said that you would flip out if you merely picked up on an official doing this in your game, what if the official flat out told you he was doing this?
In the recent tournament that I did in Las Vegas I told a coach from Oregon straight to his face that I would never call a travel on a certain play that he was whining about.
The play in question was that twice in the first 5 minutes of the game his team's press was broken for uncontested lay-ups. On both plays I was the lead and the player making the basket with no one within 30 feet of him probably took an extra half step. I ignored it both times. The coach complained to me after the second play that this was a travel. I told him that he should be more concerned with his team getting back on defense and that if he didn't have a defender anywhere in area I was never going to call that a travel. He really didn't like that saying that a travel was a travel, but I believed that he was simply begging for anything that would help his team after they had not played quality defense, and told him I will call advantage/disadvantage. I don't feel a bit bad about what I said to him and I would do it again. Incidently, his team lost 80-77 in 2OT. I'm sure he thought that I screwed him.