Finally...

How much 3-person is there during the regular season?

[Rich]

Originally Posted by AremRed

How much 3-person is there during the regular season?

Depends on the conference. Now that the whole postseason will be 3-person, I anticipate more conferences moving to 3 in future years.

Originally Posted by Rich

Depends on the conference. Now that the whole postseason will be 3-person, I anticipate more conferences moving to 3 in future years.

How many 3-man games did you work this year? Do you think all of the tournament officials will have prior 3-man experience? I had a conversation with a veteran today who said that he once worked a tournament game with a man who had never worked 3-man before and it really hurt the quality of officiating.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by AremRed

I had a conversation with a veteran today who said that he once worked a tournament game with a man who had never worked 3-man before and it really hurt the quality of officiating.

Happens here in the Land of Steady Habits all the time.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by AremRed

How many 3-man games did you work this year? Do you think all of the tournament officials will have prior 3-man experience? I had a conversation with a veteran today who said that he once worked a tournament game with a man who had never worked 3-man before and it really hurt the quality of officiating.

A good, post-season 2-man official shouldn't hurt the crew that much, IMO. Good, post-season 2-man official would study up on 3-man mechanics in preparation of working such an assignment.

[johnny d]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

A good, post-season 2-man official shouldn't hurt the crew that much, IMO. Good, post-season 2-man official would study up on 3-man mechanics in preparation of working such an assignment.

Studying the 3-man mechanics and actually doing them in game situations are two very different games. I have seen very good 2-man officials, who have turned into very good 3-man officials struggle on the court when they first start doing 3-man. I think the biggest reason is that they are more worried about where they are supposed to go and when they are supposed to go there rather than concentrating on officiating the game. Add in the extra intensity of a playoff game and I think you are really asking for trouble by putting officials in situations that are not part of their normal routine.

[jTheUmp]

Originally Posted by johnny d

Studying the 3-man mechanics and actually doing them in game situations are two very different games. I have seen very good 2-man officials, who have turned into very good 3-man officials struggle on the court when they first start doing 3-man. I think the biggest reason is that they are more worried about where they are supposed to go and when they are supposed to go there rather than concentrating on officiating the game. Add in the extra intensity of a playoff game and I think you are really asking for trouble by putting officials in situations that are not part of their normal routine.

I can definitely agree with this based on my experience last season... after doing exclusively 2-person games for my first 3 years, my first experiences with 3-person were a big adjustment.

Luckily, I got to work 3-person in a couple of preseason scrimmages, and my first few 3-person games were JV/Varsity doubleheaders, so I could get the "where am I supposed to go, what am I supposed to look at" kinks out of my system during the JV game.

If my first "on court" 3-person experience had been in an actual varsity game... it wouldn't have gone well.

[Rich]

I agree with the last two posts.

I work a lot of 3-person games. I'm not worried about me or the crew I normally run with -- it will be the first couple of nights of the postseason (where there are very few close games) where I expect some growing pains for the first couple of years.

We're going to have to work hard to provide opportunities for people to work 3-person in game situations even if it means doing subvarsity 3-for-2, I think.

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by AremRed

I had a conversation with a veteran today who said that he once worked a tournament game with a man who had never worked 3-man before and it really hurt the quality of officiating.

That's why we have three-man certification here. All post-season games are three-man. In the pre/regular season, the home team has the option to hire three. It's usually seen at the more competitive, higher class games.