Finally...
 

Wisconsin will use 3-person crews in the entire postseason starting next year.

Hooray.

(Oh, there will also be a 40-point running clock rule after the 3rd quarter. And cutting the lead under 40 will not stop the running clock.)

Same rule in some jurisdictions on the east coast but it is 30 points.

Did some 55 minute games over last couple years....

Welcome to the club. ;)

Peace

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.

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.

The Land That Time Forgot ...
 

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

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.

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.

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.

Utah has had three man for 4A and 5A mens (the top two divisions) for a long time. they just told ust there is going to be a vote here in the next couple of months whether or not to use 3 man for womens 4 and 5A (which have historically been 2 man except for the state tournament. It also sounds like the vote will be in the favor of three man. Really excited.

Colorado uses 3 man for all varsity games (with very few small-school exceptions). Some large schools use 3 for JV (better training for varsity that way).

I am so excited about this. I have heard some vets would rather retire then do a 3 man girls game. And they will flat out need more referees if they pick up 3 man for 4A/5A and if the games are at the same time as the 4A/5A boys game then they just need more Varsity officials.

That's just stupid.

If you understood how unskilled some of our bigger schools VG games were you would understand they might be afraid of being pulled off that VB games and put on a miserable VG game instead. And how boring some of those games might be for them. Who knows... I am just excited about possibilities for the upcoming season.

Oh, so they're ready to retire rather than work girls games at all. 2 or 3 isn't the issue, except that needing more officials for girls games might mean they have to work a few. Is that accurate?

Thats my guess Adam. Once the decision comes down I look forward to asking some older vets what they are going to do or how they feel.

Then who is going to be doing those boys games? It is more likely that they will stay where they are and they'll pull in new officials to fill the needed spots.

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.

It's Not Your Father's Basketball Game Anymore ...
 

I really enjoy the challenge, both the physical challenge, and the mental challenge, of a two person game. In that way I guess that I'm glad that Connecticut is stuck in the twentieth century in terms of three person games. However, deep down inside, I know that three person games are best for the game of high school basketball. These kids today are a lot bigger, a lot faster, and a lot more skilled, all the way down to the end of the bench, than we were back when I was in high school (three favorite subjects: hunting, grunting, and cave painting). I was six feet tall and a center. I see point guards taller than six feet in high school games today. I can see more dunks in a single high school game today than I saw in my entire high school career. I only saw one basket interference call in my entire high school career, when I got my hand accidentally tangled in the net while trying to block a shot.

The 3-person system provides a better product, than the 2-person system all factors being equal.
Yet what happens when these factors aren't? It really matters which individuals fill the slots.

If there are three physically fit and well-trained officials working, then that system will work well. However, if one of the crew members is unfit or lacking in proper knowledge of rules, positioning, or judgment then this will cause a real mess. The other two partners will be depending upon this person to handle his coverage area and when he doesn't, the call will be missed or made incorrectly.
In fact, if there aren't enough quality officials to staff the 3-person system for the games in a league or area, then 2-person with two quality individuals will actually provide a better result.
There is no question that objectively the 3-person system is theoretically better, but the subjective factors will play a much larger role in determining the quality of the outcome in real world practice.

True, but you can't get to the better product of a 3-man game without some growing pains. Do it now, and your better product will be there in two or three years. Wait longer, and the entire process is delayed.

I also like that challenge, but the attitudes of players has also changed and IMO not for the better. Sportsmanship is worse and I think players attempting to get away with harming an opponent has increased. That extra set of eyes helps to discourage this and protects the crew from missing such behavior.

I agree here. But the third guy makes it so much easier to get the stuff that always seems to get missed with 2.

Agreed. If two of the three officials know three-person and the third person is a decent official, you'll be okay. If the argument against doing it in the regular season is not enough people know how then how is anyone supposed to learn? A couple of scrimmages in the preseason isn't enough and neither is a few times during camps in the summer.

As for guys who wouldn't want to do three-person GV because of the quality did it ever dawn on them that's the place to get practice?

You will never have a great system if you never have people work it. So since the biggest games of the year will be in the post season, then schools, conferences or tournaments would be better served to have many 3 person games the entire season. It tooks us a few years for everyone to feel comfortable when we changed in the late 90s. Now you almost never have to talk about basics and we can just officiate games even when you work with people you have never worked with previously.

Peace

I suspect that in most cases, the mouth running over this will be just that - mouth running. I bet MOST of your veterans who have said this will change their tune if it really did come down to "Call girls occasionally or quit".

I don't do many HS games anymore, just Fridays and some Thanksgiving and Christmas games, so it wouldn't matter much to me at this point, but I am glad that here in Chicago nobody is forced to do both boys and girls games. You can do both if you want, and there are a few people who choose to do so, but you can also work just one or the other if you want that path as well. If we were required to work both, it would mean that I would give up HS ball altogether. Sorry, but I couldn't make it through a girls game.

Can someone give me some insight into the differences you see between calling the girls games and guys games that make girls so undesirable. Obviously the pace of play and style is going to be a little different but at least around here it's not so glaring that girls games are unpalletable. The boys game is more physical and faster but both genders can have great pace or poor pace and both can have skilled varsity teams and unskilled. Maybe its a regional thing but I wouldn't say our local girls games were that much less desirable then boys games.

I'm probably not the best person to answer since I'm not in that camp but I guess it's the factors you mentioned in addition to the generally lower skill level. I work BV, GV and NCAAW and I'll be the first to say a bad GV/NCAAW game can be hard on the senses but so can a bad BV game. The only difference - to me - is in a bad BV game you may get a dunk every once in a while. As far as I'm concerned running up and down the court with no prupose and no scoring makes for a bad game regardless of gender.

It's greatly different around here. I just don't want to officiate games that are full of unforced turnovers and held balls. There are only a handful of GV programs in this area that have quality teams.

There's the difference. There are some really bad GV teams in NYC (mostly public schools) but some of my best, most competitive and hardest-fought games from this past season were GV. In my area the Catholic schools are well-coached and talented as are the public schools on Staten Island. You can't go into those games with a mindset of "Oh, it's just girls" or you'll be eaten up by the coaches, players AND fans.

These make some sense then I guess. Probably just a regional thing. Around these here parts you are as likely to get a bad boys team as a bad girls team and vice versa. Also its pretty country even in our larger communities so there is not a lot of high level athleticism in any game. You might see 1 in game dunk in a varsity boys game all year if you are lucky. Also the fact that everyone has a 24 second shot clock and 8 seconds over half means no one boys or girls is running a lot of structured offense and both teams are getting lots of shots up. Abou the only difference I see around here is that because officials don't want a ton of jump balls and in weaker girls games there are not a lot of strong players I find bad girls games get a tighter whistle and lose flow becoming free throw shooting competitions. Low level boys games tend to look more like rugby.

I will only speak for me, but not only are girls games less athletic, but I think the expectations are a lot different. Coaches and players expect a lot of little contact to be called that they do not realistically in boys games.

But most of all one of the most frustrating things for me is when you work with officials that are used to calling girls games. Often times many of girls officials are not as athletic, not as talented and it is almost like they are relegated to working girls games rather than they were accomplished officials. That is certainly the case with males most of all. And it shows up big time when at camp season you see officials have to go tot camp for camp credit and you see officias have to see some rather decent boys teams and they are completely out of their league or calling the game. That does not apply to everyone of course, but I do not change the way I call the game that drastically from even high school to college. And I am not the kind of official that just calls fouls to make coaches happy either so I tend to get frustrated when a girl goes into 3 defenders and they call a foul when I will not penalize defenders that did nothing wrong.

Just my take.

Peace

Bingo, Pick A Prize From The Top shelf ...
 

Agree 100%, but I still don't mind doing a good girls game, from middle school "junior varsity", all the way up to high school varsity. I just love interscholastic basketball. I just love officiating interscholastic basketball. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So it's a clientele thing as much as anything else. I'll admit there are calls I might have to make in a GV/NCAAW game that I might not make in a BV game, especially a higher-level BV game, but that's as much due to physical differences as anything else. When dunking/above-the-rim play is removed from the equation there's a lot of other stuff that has to be called so teams can score.


Fair point and it's something I noticed watching state H.S. championship games on ESPNU in March. I can say I don't see this as much in my area but it probably has a lot to do with the fact NYS GV uses modified NCAAW rules so many of the H.S. GV officials also work college ball. Of course there are some (the guy I mentioned a few months ago who wanted to watch the handshake at the end of a GV game was in the category) but I consider that the exception rather than the rule especially because I know he doesn't work college ball.


Don't we all :D I think that comes down to coaching more than anything else. I'm just as likely to hear a GV coach in my area yell at his/her player for going into a crowd as they are to get on us for not making a call.

Almost [/B]all varsity is 3- man[/B] in the land of AHHH"s-KC area (1a-2a maybe not all)
All Sub varsity is all 2-man.
The problem comes in....no 3- man training ground outside of camps and clinics.
The transition into 3-man is a tough jump up in the beginning.