Quick feet and travel violation
 

1st year official looking for advice again. Hard to describe but a player on top of the key makes a drive to the basket. It seems as though the feet start moving right as or just before the dribble is initiated. It looks like a travel but it happens so fast I'm not always positive. I see this a lot and I'm never sure what to call. I hope everyone understands what I'm trying to describe.

The ol' switch foot takeoff? If you see both feet move at the same time and the ball is still in their hand, get it.

Get the pivot foot as soon as you can, and watch that for movement. If the foot is lifted off of the floor before the dribble you have a travel. It takes time to get used to the speed of the play.

+1

Starting talking to yourself as a player controls the ball "ok which foot is the pivot foot?' "left foot is the pivot foot' and then based on the players action with that foot determines whether you have a travel or not.

Practice over and over getting the pivot foot and you'll start getting more comfortable with the travelling call.....

Many times, it will look like a "scissor-kick" where the ballhandler juts one foot forward and one back before starting to dribble. Bing.

The heck of it is, it's counter-productive: There's no push-off to start a drive/dribble. But it happens a lot. Including with very quick players.

General rule of thumb is don't guess on travels. If you are not sure don't blow the whistle. I think many times officials call way to many marginal travel/no travel calls and focus so much on that that they miss many other things.

Regarding tracking the pivot foot, one of the other guys who works college ball along with a solid high school schedule in my association gave this advice: He said that each time a player has the ball that he will subtly tap his leg over and over on whichever side the pivot foot is to help him correctly identify a walk. Not sure if anyone else does this or not...I know a few other guys that do in the association, however I have not ever personally tried this technique to keep up with the pivot foot.

Anybody Remember Secret Agent 86, Maxwell Smart ???
 

Oldest trick in the book.

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Key thing is to make sure that the feet actually move. I've seen officials call a travel on a good shoulder fake and on video review, the pivot foot never moved.

... or (at lower levels especially) you get a player thinking he/she is going to attempt a "jump" shot but then thinking better of it after crouching, pushing up and stopping -- without both feet ever leaving the floor.

Video Helps Everybody
 

Once the guidance from this forum and a review of the relevant rules becomes personally understood, this is a good situation to view on video so as to impress upon your mind what to call or no-call when.
If you don't have video of your or your association's games, go to YouTube and access the games, for instance, do a search for DVBOA and use what that association puts online. It would be easy to find segments that feature what you're talking about. When you isolate them, watch them over and over and over and over and over and over again.
The repetition of the visual will become the actual when you see it and your call or no-call accuracy will improve.
Has worked for others.

Whichever one you go with (travel or not) call it consistently and you shouldn't get many complaints. Also, once you see it, discuss with your partner(s) and make sure you are all on the same page for that game.