Selling a block/charge no-call
 

Under a minute left in a boys JV game, A has blown a double-digit lead in the second half and now trails by three. A1 makes a steal and goes on the fast break. B1 obtains LGP in front of the basket before A1 goes in for the layup. A1 moves to avoid B1, but still makes some contact and B1 falls hard and awkwardly to the floor. I decided not to call a foul and I'm confident in my decision. If I had called a foul it would've been PC on A1 -- B1 was certainly not guilty of a foul in my mind and A1 made an effort to avoid contact.

A's coach went crazy, yelling that I can't no-call here, that he just wanted a call one way or the other. With as hard as B1 hit the floor, I imagine that my lack of a whistle could come across as indecision. As some of you may know, my background is as a soccer referee, and when we make a big no-call we sometimes give a big NO! signal with the arms to let everyone know that we saw the contact and decided not to call a foul. Obviously this doesn't work so well in basketball, so does anyone have any tips to help sell a no-call in a situation like this?

If it is an obvious call, just call the obvious. It sounds like (without seeing the play) like an easy PC foul. You would have at least shown you were calling the game until the end. No reason IMO to not just call a foul here if it clearly was a foul to everyone. Making other signals just makes it seem like you just do not want to call something most of the time.

I think we get in more trouble by not calling fouls than when we actually call fouls.

Peace

Here was your chance to fix it. :D

Don't overthink it. When a player is setting up to try and draw a charge he wants a call to be made. Give him what he wants. He knows he is taking a risk, but the reward is getting a charge call. Unless the dribbler stops at contact (i.e. he doesn't go "through" the defender) you gotta call something.

Like I said, the contact wasn't really that hard. I think it just looked bad because B1 fell awkwardly and hit the floor hard. In a close game like this I wanted to give A the benefit of the doubt, and with that in mind this just felt like a no-call. I'm just wondering if there's anything I can do differently in the future to let everyone know that I clearly saw the contact and decided not to call a foul rather than not blowing my whistle because I was unsure.

The contact does not have to be hard. But if the players were displaced, then call a foul. It will make your life so much easier even if they disagree with the call. At least you called something. And that is what you could have done differently without seeing a video. Not sure what you can do, because any signal is not going to make everyone happy. You call will make them happy or at least show you care in a kind of a game that is out of hand.

You never make everyone happy with no-calls anyway. ;)

Peace

Flop signal
 

I have seen officials use a one hand palm upward motion to indicate a flop by the defense. In my mind it's a get your butt up off the floor - you ain't getting a PC call on that acting job signal. Personally, I do not use this unapproved signal and never will, it's way to showboatish for me.

There is no approved NFHS signal for a non-call in this situation. No whistle = no call.

If you determined that the defender obtained ILGP and the offensive player initiated contact which displaced the defender, then you should have whistled a PC foul.

This may seem harsh, but I know that you can handle it. The rest of your comments are nothing more than an attempt to rationalize your not making this call. Not really that hard, fell awkwardly, give the player the benefit of the doubt, the game was close, last few seconds remaining, blah, blah, blah. Next time just blow the whistle.

Flip Flop ...
 

Do they follow it up with a technical foul signal?

10-3-6-F: A player shall not: Commit an unsporting foul. This includes, but is not limited to, acts or conduct such as: Faking being fouled

Even If You Have To Guess ...
 

Train wrecks require a whistle.

To the OP:

The defense was in LGP. Offense intitiated contact. Defense was displaced/disadvantaged . . . whatever you want to call it. Unless you though the defender was falling hard on their own not because of the contact just call the PC.

To the quoted section above:

I feel like we've had this conversation before but falling (in my mind) does not equate to faking being fouled. Assuming there was contact. How the defense chooses to protect themselves or deal with that contact is on the defense. Even if a kid falls before contact they are allowed to back up and protect themselves in the case of contact. If them falling or stepping back causes them to avoid the contact all together they've protected themsevles but I can't call a PC because no contact occured.

It seems to me that in a close game you wouldn't want to give either team the benefit of the doubt. In a blowout, you *might* give the losing team the benefit of the doubt.

If A1's contact is what knocked B1 to the floor, you need to call the foul regardless of how hard the contact was.

How exactly would one "sell" any kind of no-call?? Selling a call means to be overly demonstrative with the signal, and/or to be really loud...how can we sell something we don't even call?

Would you have called a charge in the first half?

The first part in bold, should not factor in your decisions whether or not to call a foul. This philosophy will do nothing for your career other than cause you trouble.

Who cares what "everyone" thinks as to whether or not you had a no call or a missed call. By not blowing the whistle, you made it clear that you thought the contact was incidental. You can explain your no call to either or both coaches when they ask. Hopefully you give them better reasoning than you used on the forum to justify the no call.

Simple answer is no...outside of maintaining confident body posture and not "showing" you seconding guessing yourself there is no signal for a no-call in basketball. I do sometimes add a simple shake of the head...but you have to show confidence in the fact that you didn't call anything.

IMO...without being there of course...I would have made a call one way or the other.

The F Word ...
 

Falling does not, but flopping does.

RedKillian's words, not mine.

Flopping is also exaggerating the effect of the contact, which I'm not T'ing.

Flop ???
 

I've never called a technical foul for a flop, but I have to ask, just what exactly would you "T" for under this rule?" For what other reason would a player exaggerate the effect of contact, other than faking being fouled?

I've seen it called exactly once, ever. HS varsity boys. Defender screams in agony and falls backwards as the dribbler comes in. Alas for the defender, the referee had a great view (so did I) - of the foot of space between him and the dribbler. I think the rule is there for that -- the extreme situations that are blatantly clear as attempts to decieve the referee.

I've called it one time. Little kid YMCA ball. Kid fell with no contact, I warned him and his coach, who nodded at me as if he had no clue.
Shortly after, he's playing defense about 25 get from the basket waiting for the dribbler. When the dribbler gets about 5 feet away, he flies back like he was kicked in the cheat by Jackie Chan.

If you have to sell a no call that hard that means you should have had a whistle. And everything you described indicates that it was a PC foul.

The reasons you gave for not calling a foul are going to get you in trouble. Don't overthink and complicate things. Just call what you see and if you are not sure then always err on the side of the rules.

There are things that some officials do to indicate a no call. A few years ago some NCAA officials would put both hands straight up to indicate the defender maintained verticality but I havent seen that recently. There is the get up sign to a player that may have flopped. There is the hitting of both hand together to indicate "all ball." The problem with all of these things is they have the potential to make you look bad on tape, especially if one of your partners comes in with a whistle or if you clearly missed the call. I will sometimes shake my head no on a block/charge no call but am trying to eliminate that as well.

The best thing you can do is simply look confident and keep officiating. If the appropriate time comes where the coach asks you about the call you need to be able to communicate with him using language that is supported by RULE. He "made an effort to avoid contact" sounds silly when there was in fact contact as you indicated. The fact that it was late in the game and you "wanted to give A1 the benefit of the doubt" are also horrible reasons that sound silly for not calling obvious contact.

You can say something to the effect of "that contact did not cause that result" or "the contact did not displace the defender," etc. But that's not how you described the play.

I would worry less about selling no calls and more about getting plays right and displaying strong, confident mechanics.

Probably not, honestly.

Maybe my description of the play to emphasized the lack of fault on the part of B1 more than I should have...replaying the play in my mind, I still feel like the no-call was correct here. I'd love to be able to see it again, but I don't have video of the game.

Then again, in hindsight, I also probably could've saved myself a headache by calling PC. I guess all of this comes with experience.

This is not ever a reason to make a call, but you already knew that.

I officiated H.S. soccer for 12 years and since you state that soccer is your primary sport, I get the feeling that you are trying to apply soccer's advantage philosophy to basketball. When officiating basketball forget soccer's advantage philosophy.

In basketball there is the Oswald Tower Philosophy of Advantage-Disadvantage but is not the same as soccer's advantage philosophy.

MTD, Sr.

P.S. Finally Good Night.

I had a play last week. A1 drives to the hoop. B1 in LGP goes down way before A1 makes any contact. I tell B1 to get up.

Next stoppage I warn him about flopping. I go by the bench during the next TO and tell B's HC about the flopping and the subsequent warning I issued.

His response: "you gotta call the kick ball!"

I literally snickered at him and then jogged to my next spot.

On really pedantic note a player cannot fake being "fouled", since a foul is a judgement call by the official over ther impact contact has on a play at best a player can fake being contacted severely or situationally where they would expect a foul call.

I've been in a gym once where a T was called on this: a player had bailed out on a couple block charge situations where my partner felt he trying to buy calls, so he got warned. Later in the game the ball carrier was being doubled and started clearing space. Kid goes down again and my partner T's him up. Kid stands up and spits a mouthful of blood on my partner's shoe and gets tossed.

WHere would I call this:

- You would blatantly need to be faking contact that wasn't occuring at all. ie. The old slap yourself on the arm.
- You would need to be trying to get me call something that just isn't going to happen. Ie. In a block chrage situation if a defender chooses to fall back after minimal contact or no contact I'm not likley to warn or T that. I'm not t'ing a kid up for being soft. Now if they are making all sorts of sound effects or rolling around like a pro soccer game that might be different. Or if they start to complain for calls when that goes on and I've told them what to do to get the call.

Realisitcally its going to need to be a pretty extreme case for me T this up.

1. JV game
2. LGP
3. Contact initiated by dribbler

Those were the key things I took out of OP. Dribbler tried to avoid contact... but he didn't! Too bad! PC. Think about it like this: The defender tried to block the shot but he hit the shooter on the arm. I didn't want to penalize him because he tried not to hit the shooter. It doesn't make sense! Call the PC. Your game will improve. That takes us back to #1. If you want to move up, start making this call. Not penalizing the offense in this case IS penalizing the legal defense.

Just my opinion...

And Bingo was his name-o.

Another great thing to look for is displacement and if the dribbler stops at contact. If the offensive player is able to stay under control and stop at contact it's probably a no-call. If the offensive player ends up on top of the defender on the floor then you have some obvious displacement and need a whistle.

I had a weird block/charge today where the dribbler faked right and went left. The defender maintained LGP and the contact happened with the dribbler 's right leg on the defenders left leg. The defender ended up shooting straight back and the offensive player kinda faded away to the left. To everyone in the world (and the coach who blew up) it looked like a block but all I saw was a legal defender and displacement. The contact doesn't have to occur right in the middle of the chest to have a charge, and this contact was nearly on the side of the body.

I, too, think you should have a call on train wrecks. In the OP the player hit the floor hard. Calling stuff like this may prevent future injuries or other nonsense. If you don't call the PC, the kid that was on the floor may think it is OK to try the same thing, or you get jawing, or other retaliation.

If the game video is sent to the State, assignor, whoever... What is easier to defend? Calling a foul that is a foul by rule? Or giving hollow platitudes?

If a defender flops, that defender almost always interferes with a play by going to the floor with some sort of contact (could even be minor). If they trip, cause any contact at all... Call a block on a flopping player and I guarantee they will only flop 5 times during the game.

Train Wrecks ...
 

I had such a wreck Friday night. I'm the new lead after a division line steal, couldn't really get ahead of the play, and decided to try to get a good angle instead. From the defender's movements, I could have sworn that she was going to try to block the shot, and readied myself for that possibility, but at the last split second she decided to try to take the charge. I didn't have the best position, I was preparing for a different play, and only saw the defender get hit in the torso, so I took a chance on a player control foul, and tried to sell it. The offensive player's fans went nuts, not your usual fan craziness, but enough craziness to give me pause, so I knew that I had probably screwed the pooch. The offensive player's coach gave me a pass, I think because he was thirty points behind in the third period, and decided to pick his fights.

After the game, I asked my partner about it, and sure enough, the defender was moving toward the offensive player at the time of the wreck, so I blew the call.

Despite this situation, I will still make educated guesses if I have train wrecks. With a whistle, you, at least, have only half the gym against you, and you're letting the players know that they can't willy-nilly bang into each other just for the hell of it, putting their own safety at risk.