Unmarked starters for JV game
 

Had a JV game last night and was checking the book at 12 minutes. Noted the visiting team didn't have starters marked. Asked the visiting team if he had the starters and he said no. I said well you've got about a minute to get them.

One of the ACs was over hearing this as the team and HC were in the locker room. He says, "Really? For a JV game? We've never had to have them marked all season." :eek: my reply, "well we are today."

Thoughts on how I handled this. And.... Go.

I'm sure some will be surprised I'm saying this, but I'd say, "Well, we are today. Please mark them."

I've called JV games that didn't even have a book.

I'm all for more leniency of such things in sub-varsity games, but not having the starters marked at all? At the risk of putting a song in people's heads, I can't go for that.

Had a T on this a couple of years ago in a JV game. The book was filled out except for the V starters, and the visiting team had disappeared until about 3 minutes left.

One option on this is to just select the first 5 in the book (or some other combination).

then, when the coach finally gets around to it, he gets the choice of starting who is in the book or taking the T. if you don't mark anything, he doesn't get a choice -- it's going to be a T.

I wanted to give him a choice and the AC waddled off to find out who. They got it taken care of.

Me personally, it's more of a non-confrontaioanl conversation along these lines….

Well coach, by rule, you need to mark your starters now.
Yeah coach, by rule, JV, Varsity, it doesn't matter. The starters for both teams need to be marked during pre-game by the 10 minute mark or its a T and the other team would get to start the game shooting two from the line and getting the ball.
Just feel its a more professional sounding response to a coach's questioning of a rule.

I would not care about this unless the coach did. I have worked JV games where no fouls were kept.

Peace

The first time he complained about a call, my response would be "Really? For a JV game?"

Unless it's one of those JV games where fouls aren't kept, we're going to require starters to be marked. At least where I work.

I would ask for starters to be marked at JV games around here. I can imagine a lot of officials wouldn't bother with a T if they didn't mark them though.

On this topic somewhat: I had two games in a tournament tonight. I'm the R for the first game and we come on the court. Both teams are in blue uniforms. We ask one of the kids what the deal is. They had brought blue instead of white like they were supposed to, so someone had to go get their whites. I went over at about the 11:00 mark to check the book. I went to that team's head coach and asked if their white uniforms had the same numbers as the blue uniforms they had on at the time, and he says they do.

Sure enough they go change with about 5 minutes on the clock. At about the 2:00 mark I see their head coach with a pencil in his hand at the table. Rut-roh. We go over and I ask the scorer what they did. They had changed a player's number to reflect the white jerseys. The scorer told me the other coach was fine with it but didn't really know what to do. We started the game with two free throws.

I understand, just saying the JV games are often some of the more laid back games. Usually these games are Saturday morning and they piece together players for the games. I even had a team on time show up late (bus did not pick up team in at a proper time. We sat for about 40 minutes and when the game started, we did two running clock halves. This is not always the case, but often not a huge deal with if we do what we can to allow the kids to play.

Peace

In most areas JV games are the equivalent of IL (at least Chicagoland) Soph games -- that is, the game that's played before the varsity game. In IL, the administrative procedures for Soph games are "more by the book" than for the JV games.

I'd T the team that did NOT bring the white uniforms, and NOT T the team that changed uniforms, even if that resulted in a number change.

See 3.4.1A

That sounds like the sophomore games around here. Not even all the 4A and 5A schools field sophomore teams.

The JV games, however, are normally treated like mini-varsity games.

If I recall, the JV games I worked in Iowa were like you describe, because the sophomore games were essentially treated like the mini-varsity games. Just a switch in terminology.

I read the case play. I can see what you mean.

Penalize the team who was supposed to bring the whites, no matter which one actually ends up putting the whites on. Would you still penalize them if they changed before the game?

I'm pretty sure the team that ended up going to get their whites is the team that was supposed to wear them to begin with.

Play 1) H shows up in blue. Changes to White. Ruling 1) Penalize any scorebook changes. No penalty just for changing uniforms.

Play 2) H shows up in blue. V changes to white. Ruling 2) Penalize H for illegal uniforms. Let V change, including numbers in book, with no penalty

Got it. I'm fairly sure #1 is what happened, but I'm not positive. I just (maybe wrongly) assumed that the team that changed to white was supposed to wear white to start with. I'll make sure to ask next time. That was the first time in eight years I've had someone not show up in white uniforms.

Outside of the Chicago area, they call the JV team what we call the Sophomore team and especially the smaller schools. Schools that are small usually do not have an A or B team at a level also.

Peace

The Constitution State ...
 

I figured that I would add my two cents. Public, and Catholic, high schools here in Connecticut field three teams for each gender: varsity, junior varsity, and freshman. Officials are expected to go by the book (pregame conference, jackets, observe warmups, pregame coaches and captains, check the book, etc.) for all three teams, with the possible exception of taping up a few numbers to make them legal, or non-duplicates, for subvarsity games.

Private prep schools pretty much follow suit with the exception of having A and B teams on the subvarsity level. If parents are paying thousands of dollars to send their kids to a private school and the kids want to play basketball, the school makes sure that there are teams available.

I've never heard of sophomore basketball teams before I joined the Forum. Football, yes, Basketball, no.

I am going to piggy back onto Billy's post here. Over the course of my many years of officiating H.S. basketball I have officiated freshmen, jr. varsity, varsity in four states (Ohio, Florida, California, and that state up north which is Michigan for non-fans of The Ohio State University). And in each of those states the games were officiated by the NFHS (or NBCUSC when I was in Florida and my Ancient Days in Ohio) and we check the Book. I have only officiated JrHS games in Ohio and Michigan and we also check the Book in those games because it is required by the Rules.

With regards to CYO, youth tournaments, I cannot ever remember checking the Book per se. But in AAU and YBOA national tournaments my partners and I most certainly checked the Book.

MTD, Sr.

I handle any JV games I might work as the scorer the same as a varsity contest.Starters marked and everything else I might do for a varsity contest.The kids and coaches deserve that much because it is the most important game on the court at that point.

We called those Varsity Reserves.

I would have picked his starters and told the coach at te intro meeting, "I hope you like the starters I picked for you" He could change with a T or play as marked.