Wild ballgame tonight
 

Had a pretty crazy one tonight. Boys HS varsity. Felt really bad for the head coach of the losing team who got ejected because of 3 indirect T's by bench personnel. We had 4 technical fouls, an intentional foul and a flagrant foul - 5 of the 6 on the same team.

1 - B12 dunks during warmups. B's HC gives him the butt-chewing of his life on the court as the warmup period continues. He gives him another earful when he is informed he has lost the coaching box for the whole game.

2 - B20 leaves the bench as players for both teams are jawing at each other after a held ball (sometime in the 3rd quarter, I think). 2nd indirect on HC. B20 DQ'd.

3 & 4 - With about 30 seconds left and B leading 61-59, A10 intentionally fouls B44 right in front of B's bench. Actually, into B's bench. Player B3 shoves A10, then bench personnel B14 and B24 leave the bench to get involved in the scuffle. All fouls enforced in order of occurrence. The players leaving bench was 3rd indirect on HC, so he has to go. B14 and B24 also DQ'd. B44 misses both free throws on intentional foul. A1, shooting 4 free throws (2 for the player T, 2 for the bench T) hits the first two, misses the next two (with the fourth attempt coming to rest on the flange, something I've never seen in a game I'm officiating.)

Tie game, 61-61. A turns the ball over in their frontcourt with less than 10 seconds left. B runs the floor, B4 is fouled while attempting a layup with 1.8 seconds remaining. B4 proceeds to miss both FTs, A10 rebounds, and B4 then proceeds to knock the living daylights out of A10 - literally shoved him off the court and out the door into the hallway with no time left. Flagrant foul, B4 DQ'd. A10 hits the first FT, A wins 62-61, and our crew runs like hell for the dressing room.

Had to be escorted out the (only) door to the parking lot by police past B's fans, who stayed in the building for the purpose of calling us cheaters, among other unsavory things. I should add that we repeatedly had to get game management/police to keep A's fans off the floor during timeouts and free throws. In addition, before B4's free throws at the end, the entire A student section moved from one end of the gym to the other, all while the principal of A's school was leading them in cheers while wearing reindeer antlers. (I swear I am not making any of this up.)

Great way to head into the holiday break. (For the record, the JV boys' game and the varsity girls' game were mostly uneventful.)

I wouldn't feel too sorry for the coach. He failed to do his job, and a lack of discipline likely cost his team the game.

Great Minds Think Alike ...
 

Agree. I was thinking the same thing as I read the original post. In fact, I'll go a step further, I wouldn't feel sorry, at all, for that coach.

Man, sounds like a fun one!! Just out of curiosity, how far onto the floor did B20 (the first guy) come on the floor? And then on the scuffle infront of B's bench how far out on the floor did those two come?

Not sorry one bit. If his kids don’t realize they can’t dunk in warm-ups that’s a pretty big hint it’s going to be a long night.

I felt bad for the guy because he's always been a very easy coach to deal with. Very respectful toward officials and never causing much trouble. Pretty well-respected by everyone around here. The kid that dunked in pregame knew exactly what he had done, and I heard the coach berating him afterward with phrases like "How many times have I told all of you that you can't do that, it will be a cold day in hell before you ever dunk again," etc. The last one, he was trying to be proactive in keeping things from escalating, but the 2 players got around him and into the middle of things anyway. There are plenty of coaches around here I wouldn't feel bad about running, but he's not one of them.

As for how far the kids came out on the floor - this was a really small gym where the bench is the front row of the bleachers on one side, and there's maybe 3 feet of space between the sideline and the stands. So the kids that came off the bench, they weren't that far from the bench, but it was more than a few steps onto the floor. They were definitely on the court in the middle of the scuffle.

Game story online somewhere?

Sometimes even good coaches have bad games.

I'll bet the players are running pretty hard today.

Doubt it. Two pretty small schools that get little or no coverage. I didn't even see the score in this morning's paper.