Get the first one
 

Basketball officials (at least, good ones) always talk about the importance of "getting the first one". That point was hammered home to me in a big way in a game earlier this week.

JV boys, 3 person crew. I'm new lead in transition. A40 and B44 are running together down the court ahead of the ball. As they reach the block, B44 gives A40 a slight one-hand shove and A440 stumbles OOB. For some reason, I didn't get any air in my whistle. I think I thought it was more incidental than anything.

A40, on the other hand, took exception to it, and "came back mad".... about 2 seconds later, he runs out to the wing and receives a pass. The then looks, notices that B44 is guarding him, and immediately lowers his shoulder and runs directly over B44. T and I both come up with a Player Contol foul, and B44 has to leave the game for awhile (he hit the floor pretty hard).

The whole thing could've been avoided if I had just called the first foul on B44, and that fact has been bothering me for the last couple of days.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Get The First One

Very first camp I ever attended was after my first year in officiating. It was just a little HS camp ran by a prolific D1 official from the local area.

First video he showed us was a fight from a game he worked in which the new C and L didn't notice a skirmish brewing while the teams were in transition. That has always stuck in my head.

Question for you....Obviously, you saw the first slight shove and decided to pass on it as incidental contact. Are you now questioning that decision due to the ensuing action by A40? What if the play had gone to the other wing and there was nothing further between the two players? Would you still be questioning your decision to pass on the slight shove?

As pointed out above, these two statements are contradictory to each other. If you thought it was incidental contact, right or wrong, that's the way the players must treat it. Whatever did or didn't happen beforehand, it is A40 who is responsible for his own actions, not you.

I wrote an article in 2002 about something I saw on TV that's stuck with me my entire career since then.

2-person crew, end of game situation. Trail decided he was going to demand a good foul instead of giving the damned foul the kid wanted.

Kid goes to the ground, officials calls TRAVELING, there's a technical, then another....

I assume you are talking about a situation where the defense is trying to take a foul?

Yup.

Yup, if they are trying to foul just give it to them.

Yeah, I'm kinda contradicting myself, but the initial contact should've been a foul. As I remember it, my thought process was "he shoved that guy out of bounds, that's a foul, but it didn't really cause any disadvantage, I'm not gonna call that, uh oh, other guy is coming back mad, this could get ugly, I should've called that shove initially, crap, watch out (shoved player gets the ball), here it comes, FOUL."


Yeah, I would still be questioning myself, even if nothing further had happened (see my thought process above... I need to put air in my whistle at the "that's a foul" part of my thinking). I wish I had video so I could review it (unfortunately, video is hard to come by for officials around here).

Doesn't excuse A40's actions, of course... he deserved the PC call he eventually earned. But still... GET THE FIRST ONE.