Do you guess?

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Agree.

With a play in that location, your best position will be at least as far into the court as the circle, maybe even beyond it just a bit. You might also go into the backcourt depending on how high or low the play is. Being more then 1/2 the width of court away from the play is just too far away to have a good view.



To get any sort of angle you'd need to see in a trap by moving just toward the backcourt while staying a few fee from the sideline, you could end up being 50-60 feet from the play. Plus, the distance you'd need to move to any adjustments you'd need to make to maintain a view through the players are multiplied by the distance. By moving only towards the backcourt, you pretty much give up any chance of improving your angle as the players shift.

Staying well in your side of the court would be akin to the leading covering a play in one corner while positioned on the opposite side of the paint.

And so what if you get caught in the middle on a turn over. That is rare. Far more common is that you'll not be able to adequately cover the trap on the far side. If you do get stuck on a turnover, just go down the other side to cover the play at the other end. If you have a good partner, they will see what happened and will shift to the otherside. If they don't, you can slide back across once you get to the endline.

I was hoping you'd post as I know you work a significant amount of varsity basketball 2-person (even more than I do these days, I'm guessing, since we're working *some* of our games 3-person and I tend to seek those conferences out these days when I can). Is everything in OR still 2-person at the HS level?

One of the first things we teach officials is that angle is king, but distance is important, if only for credibility when we make a call. If I'm making a call on the far side of the court, I'd better be over there and I'd better be closing as I make a call.