How do you handle it if you aren't sure of the shooter. Here is the situation. A1 shoots a three from right in front of T. Me as lead see B2 two hand shove A2 trying to get position for the rebound. I have the foul and went to ask if the basket went. It did so I report the made basket and report the foul. It should have been a one and one and everyone is lined up for a free throw. A1 shoots and makes and then the other team grabs the ball and heads out of bounds for a throw in. Here is where I realize that my partner apparently thought I called a foul on the shooter and not a rebounding foul. I blow it dead and we get together. By this time I have no idea who the real shooter should be. Partner who is a varsity official says "we could have just gone with it and no one would have known." :roll eyes: so we waved off the original. FT and just picked one of the four other players it could have been. Thoughts?

Use your voice when you call the foul "Push on B2 -- A2 is my shooter". This will help you and your partner remember.

(As an aside, depednign a little on the severity of the push -- if there was no rebound, here really wasn't much of an advantage -- so maybe this wasn't really a foul.)

I did think about the possibility of it not being a foul, but I thought a good two handed shove deserved the foul. Thanks for the advice for next time. I will definitely remember for next time. I am going to try and get in the habit of remembering fouler and fouled every time, even on non shooting fouls, just so I am in the habit for when this situation happens again.

And as a second question bob, when would you whistle the foul if it wasn't as severe and obvious as my situation but still provided an advantage after the shot was missed? Could it be a really really late whistle?

What is your opinion on how to handle an unknown shooter?

On rebounding fouls, I'll sometimes wait to see if the right player gets possession of the rebound. Sometimes that results in a late whistle. Occasionally, it's "too late". Had one a couple of seasons ago that looked really bad because by the time I had a whistle on the initial foul, it looked like I was needing some vision work.

As soon as it provides an advantage -- the ball goes over the head of the player who was pushed underneath, for example.

If you don't know the shooter, you can try to get the players to figure it out. You could go to the captain and say "Are you sure you want that guy at the line? Because if the wrong player shoots, it's a T?" (and act like you know for certain who the shooter is supposed to be).

If you don't know who the foul is on, or don't know who the shooter should be:

1. Ask your partners, they should know or at least know who it is not
2. Ask the table, the two scorers should ideally agree
3. Gather the players together and ask them (tell them to be honest or you will find out, generally they will point to the same guy)
4. Pick a random player
5. Ask the coaches (absolute last resort, not a good idea)