Freedom of Movement 10-6-12

[johnny d]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

But that is why we are in this place to start with. They have already decided and communicated that, after years of trying to get officials to apply good judgment to these situations, it wasn't working. The level of judgement officials were applying was not good enough. So, they made them absolutes with no judgement required.

It it an absolute or has nothing really changed? Are all of the absolutes really just open to some non-defined level of judgement?

Do you think it is better, for the sake of consistency, to make an edict stating it is absolutely a foul every time the same defender touches a ball handler more than once, even if neither touch, taken individually, is a foul? That philosophy makes no sense at all. Taken literally, the rule swings the pendulum way too far in the other direction. Two touches, neither of which individually are fouls, separated by time and distance were not where the problem of poor judgment was occurring. The problem was multiple, continuous touches that were not being called. The NCAA-M rule makes more sense logically, is more in line with the rest of the rule book in regards to what constitutes a foul, and makes more sense mechanistically (unless you want to encourage more ball watching).

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by johnny d

Do you think it is better, for the sake of consistency, to make an edict stating it is absolutely a foul every time the same defender touches a ball handler more than once, even if neither touch, taken individually, is a foul?

Yes...and so does the NCAA...both men an women. That is the point of the 4 absolutes. Of course, the specific absolutes can be and have been defined somewhat differently. I can imagine several occurrences of all four of the absolutes that I would not previously have called a foul. The NCAA and the NFHS decided that the judgement we were all applying to these plays, after years to POEs was not good enough. So, they took the judgement away (in slightly different ways).

Originally Posted by johnny d

That philosophy makes no sense at all. Taken literally, the rule swings the pendulum way too far in the other direction. Two touches, neither of which individually are fouls, separated by time and distance were not where the problem of poor judgment was occurring.

Maybe, or maybe those in charge felt that those touches should have often been fouls too. If not for an advantage, why does a defender need to ever put their hands on the ball handler? They split the difference and give the one defender on minor touch for free.

Originally Posted by johnny d

The problem was multiple, continuous touches that were not being called. The NCAA-M rule makes more sense logically, is more in line with the rest of the rule book in regards to what constitutes a foul, and makes more sense mechanistically (unless you want to encourage more ball watching).

Not really, two touches, back to back, neither of which would be fouls on their own just because they happen within 3-4 seconds are not any more a foul than touches that happen 10 or more seconds apart.

But again, I don't like the timeless element because I do agree that it really is not what they wanted to eliminate and it would be impractical to administer consistently across coverage areas.