I agree with Nevada.

I cringe when I hear people pre-game that if bodies are on the floor we HAVE to have a whistle on the play. Basketball is a contact sport. But we all know that all contact is not illegal. Sometimes there is contact and it looks ugly but its possible nobody did anything illegal. Play on.

I had this play last night. I'm C right in front of Coach A with his team on offense. Dribbler drives into a perfectly legal secondary defender near the top of the key, falls down, ball comes out, primary defender hits the floor too, the ball ends up going the other way with a layup for Team B.

Coach A says another phrase I hate, "that had to be something? A charge? (on his own player)." "Coach your player put his head down to dribble through a double team, lost the ball, and didn't displace anybody." It was something--ugly basketball--but not illegal. The T on the play and I talked during the next timeout and we both saw the exact same thing.

I prefer to pre-game that if we have bodies on floor we should either have a whistle or be able to explain how they got there. At times easier said than done but the focus should be on maintaining angles, refereeing the defense, and getting the play right.

Guessing and penalizing a player and team who did nothing worse than a no call IMO. Especially if you are doing so out of your primary.

I'm not saying the T should rush in and put a whistle on this (the OP).

I'm saying that the C/L who should've had good looks should have had a whistle. Matter of fact, I was the T last week when the same thing happened. I'm pretty sure that there was a block, but I just didn't have a good look and I stayed off it.

Most time when a player drives and he AND a defender go to the floor we are not going to no-call the play. No calling it because they didn't feel they had a good look or could make a decision or whatever isn't the right outcome.

I must confess that at the end of my first decade officiating HS BB I am still troubled by the idea of "make a call even if you aren't certain" in certain situations.

In the scenario we are discussing I have watched more refs than I want to think about call a travel just to "have a whistle" on a crash....

I believe it is on this board that I have heard more than once "if you can't explain it, you can't call it" or something similar.

If you think it rare for two or more players to end on the court due to Incidental Contact, then you haven't seen very many games.

MTD, Sr.

I guess, if you consider 60+ HS/college men's games per season for the last 10years running not many, then you would be correct.

I have officiated boys'/girls' JrHS/HS since 1971; women's college from 1974-2008 including 18 college playoff games and 20 jr. coll. playoff games; men's jr. college from 1993-2008; over 25 years of Special Olympics including over 20 Ohio Special Olympis Final Fours; one Speical Olympics World Summer Games; at least 40 AAU and YBOA boys' and girls' national championship tournaments (including three YBOA Girls' National Championship Games); countless AAU and YBOA invitationals; and MTD, Jr., and I just officiated a girls' JrHS doubleheader this morning that easily had 20 cases of players going to the floor due to Incidental Contact while going for the Ball.

And during the 1990's (Billy and Padgett, not the 1890's, though after today's games with Junior I feel like it was the 1890's.) I averaged approximately 400 hunderd games a year at all levels.

I think I have your 600 hundred games in ten years beat.

MTD, Sr.

Strongly agree. If the screener and the screenee both hit the floor then something illegal happened there, in all but the most rare circumstances.

Yeah there's not really a place in officiating for hard-and-fast rules or absolutes on when we need a whistle or don't. The situation is, as always, fluid. I pregame if we have a block/charge which ends with both players on the floor then we should probably have a whistle. Obviously there are many other plays where two players may hit the floor from incidental contact, I think most of the pregames that mention needing a whistle for two bodies on the floor are referencing block/charge plays.

There is not logical defense for your statement. Especially when you said and I qoute: "[T]here's not really a place in officiating for hard-and-fast rules or absolutes on when we need a whistle or don't. The situation is, as always, fluid."

MTD, Sr.

Probably because I'm not appealing to logic, I am appealing to experience and that is why I wrote "in all but the most rare circumstances". Johnny d said it best: "Having two players on the ground is a good indication that one of them went to and through the other."

Johnny D is wrong! One can not make such a statement unless:

First: See the whole play.

Second: Then make a decision as to whether an infraction of the rules has occured.

Three: One and Two above most definitely are logicial actions to take.

1. Mark, we are not speaking in absolutes.

2. We are making general statements on plays. We used words and phrases like "probably", "good indication", and "in all but the most rare circumstances". That leaves wiggle room because as you know Mark there is always a gray area in certain plays. That does not mean that we cannot say that from experience a certain type of play implies a certain type of result.

3. Seeing the whole play and making a decision as to the play are irrelevant to what johnny d and I are talking about. (Sorry johnny I don't mean to speak for you).

Irrelevant. More games ≠ more wisdom.

This is very true. More games may result in bad habits more deeply ingrained.

I think that there are plenty of times where two players can end up on the floor and have the contact incidental. But if it's on a screen, well, I guess I would have to see it to be convinced that it's possible to have a legal screen and that player hit the floor and not have a foul.

Rule reference, 4-24-4
"In cases of screens outside the visual field, the opponent may make inadvertent contact with the screener, and such contact is to be ruled incidental contact, provided the screener is not displaced if he/she has the ball."