56 Fouls 32 Minutes

[VaTerp]

The second game of my HS double header last night had 56 fouls in 32 minutes. I believe that individually I had 7 fouls the entire game that weren't double whistles and at most another 7 fouls where I went to the table on fouls where one of my partners also had whistles. So my partners had least 42 fouls between them. There was absolutely no flow and the only thing that saved it from being one of the least enjoyable games I've ever officiated was that it was a competitive game and ended with a team hitting a tie-breaking 3 pointer with just over a second left. But I left the court feeling dirty.

In my opinion at least 15 whistles should have been passed on as there was no advantage gained with minimal or even phantom contact. After 30 fouls in the first half I talked in the locker room about advantage/disadvantage, letting kids play through minimal contact that had no impact on RSBQ, letting plays finish, etc.

That seemed to work for about 90 seconds then it was back to the same stuff. One of my partners in particular kept repeating that "two hands are automatic" but failed to understand this applies to ball handlers. And what was really unfortunate IMO was that there were several fouls called as ball handlers were passing the ball to open teamates for jump shots and lay ups. They were actually penalizing the offense on many of these calls by calling minimal contact that did not place anyone at a disadvantage.

So my point other than ranting is to ask if others are seeing some of this in your games? It seems to me that the new hand checking rules/enforcement in NCAAM along with the 3rd point of emphasis is this year's NFHS rules book is leading to some HS officials losing sight of advantage/disadvantage and calling almost any and all contact a foul then thinking they are supported by rules and points of emphasis.

[JRutledge]

Join the crowd. Most games have had 40 or more fouls in games I have been involved in or witnessed. Our state made a big issue of these illegal contact starting with hand-checking and other freedom of movement situations. I know the last two nights I had at least 50 fouls each game.

Peace

[bob jenkins]

Depends on what your state wants. Here, any contact on the ball handler initiated by the defense is (supposed to be) a foul -- not even a "hot stove touch" is allowed.

earlier in the year, a game before mine had 64 fouls.

It can be tough to apply such a strict standard in one area and go back to adv/disadv in another and to determine whether the offense initiated the contact or the defense initiated it.

By now, though, most of the players and officials have adjusted

[VaTerp]

Interesting....

Freedom of movement was definitely a point of emphasis for the online state clinic but honestly there has been about 10 times more local discussion about long switches.

I understand, and even support, the freedom of movement emphasis. What I really don't like though is the introduction of "automatics" that take so much discretion and judgement out of the picture. Those are things that I feel are important for officials and IMO the emphasis should be on better training officials to improve discretion and judgement rather than trying to create robots who blow the whistle without any regard for advantage/disadvantage and actual impact on the play.

This was just my 4th game of the season and the first time it was like this so I'm going to wait and see how teams adjust and things play out. But if things trend toward what I experienced last night then I'm not sure how long am I for this. There are other things I could be doing with my time than administering a FT shooting contest when the contact that's occuring on the court is not placing anyone at a disadvantage.

[grunewar]

For me it's depended upon the level of the teams.

Thurs I had two below avg VG teams and we had 49 fouls. Fri, I had two high level BV teams and only one team hit the one and one, once. Less than 30 fouls total. Good to watch solid D.

Yes, the second game was much more fun.

[JetMetFan]

Originally Posted by VaTerp

The second game of my HS double header last night had 56 fouls in 32 minutes. I believe that individually I had 7 fouls the entire game that weren't double whistles and at most another 7 fouls where I went to the table on fouls where one of my partners also had whistles. So my partners had least 42 fouls between them. There was absolutely no flow and the only thing that saved it from being one of the least enjoyable games I've ever officiated was that it was a competitive game and ended with a team hitting a tie-breaking 3 pointer with just over a second left. But I left the court feeling dirty.

In my opinion at least 15 whistles should have been passed on as there was no advantage gained with minimal or even phantom contact. After 30 fouls in the first half I talked in the locker room about advantage/disadvantage, letting kids play through minimal contact that had no impact on RSBQ, letting plays finish, etc.

That seemed to work for about 90 seconds then it was back to the same stuff. One of my partners in particular kept repeating that "two hands are automatic" but failed to understand this applies to ball handlers. And what was really unfortunate IMO was that there were several fouls called as ball handlers were passing the ball to open teamates for jump shots and lay ups. They were actually penalizing the offense on many of these calls by calling minimal contact that did not place anyone at a disadvantage.

So my point other than ranting is to ask if others are seeing some of this in your games? It seems to me that the new hand checking rules/enforcement in NCAAM along with the 3rd point of emphasis is this year's NFHS rules book is leading to some HS officials losing sight of advantage/disadvantage and calling almost any and all contact a foul then thinking they are supported by rules and points of emphasis.

What you’re describing doesn’t sound like officials losing sight of advantage/disadvantage. It sounds more like officials who didn’t know what it was in the first place. My guess is before this year’s POE they were letting lots of those same calls go as well as others that should have been made so their games were turning into train wrecks. Misunderstanding advantage/disadvantage is much different from having lousy judgment.

The one BV game I had this past week started with lots of fouls in the first 1½ quarters and then two things happened:

*The players adjusted
*Those who didn’t adjust ended up on the bench

Those two things are more or less what I expect to happen this season, especially early in the year.

[Raymond]

Had a BV game last night where we had quite few handcheck calls. Both coaches kept telling their players they needed to adjust. Not a single complaint our way about it.

[Rich]

We had 10 fouls combined in the first quarter last night. I was thinking it was going to be a long night.

We had a total of 7 fouls the next 16 minutes of play. The players adjusted.

I went to the Wisconsin / Marquette game today and Marquette hasn't received the memo yet. I counted at least 5 "forearm" fouls and another 5 hand checks against them and they had a total of 25 fouls in the game.