Fight video
 

This was posted on the Facebook referee group page:

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/N...288344691.html

Discuss.

Never saw a fist from the C on the foul, but I think he had one. He did a "stop sign" to his partners as if he wanted them to wait while he reported a foul. Not sure if this could have been stopped, but a strong, quick whistle by the C and then close down to get between players would have helped.

Funny that the C was the least concerned about the initial fight (the L and T at least run in to try and stop things from escalating) but he is the one who is most involved with separating players during the fight.

Would be tough for the officials to get everything here without replay, but if they could, White would be down to at most 4 players (I saw 3 white players on the court who were fighting and should be disqualified and all but two bench players left the bench). I only see 1 black player involved in the fight, and at least 4 off the bench.

I would have to agree. I have never been involved in something like this (knock on wood). The C's reaction to what is right in front of him seems awful slow, and any lacks situational awareness to what is happening. Hind sight is 20/20, but a quick whistle and a close down immediately might have kept this form escalating like it did. Videos like this are hard to watch, but a great training tool for everyone. It's easy to think this will never happen to you, until it does. I have to imagine after watching this he regrets not being more proactive.

I make it a habit of generally weird looking contact and calls to come in with a hard whistle and get right into the players. I also do this for any crashes, hard contact, etc. I blow and stand right between them, that calms them down. But for christ sake do not blow and just start walking towards the table. blow, freeze, assess then either walk to the table to close down, but be quick about it and defuse.

The C totally blew this one. Had he called the high forearm from white 4 and stepped in it might not have happened.

He waited for the third foul-worthy contact to call anything and then did absolutely zero dead ball officiating.

He had an elbow to the neck, a push and a push back happen right in front of him, what the hell did he think might happen while he looks away and walks to report?

I was thinking the same thing. But, when you're looking at a video with "fight" in the title, you're conditioned to find the first foul, and that push by 4 white was almost at the throat.

True...but I noticed that the attention of all three officials seemed to be on the thrower and nobody was watching the screening actions in the lane. I do agree that had that first contact by White 4 been called, the whole thing probably would not have happened.

You can let him off the hook for not getting the initial foul, but you can't let him off the hook for reacting so poorly to the situation. He did nothing to try and keep things for escalating.

BTW, I'm not sure I'd get involved like these guys did. Shouldn't we, as officials, back off and let others break things up?

I am not convinced the C is even calling a foul here. Looks more like he is stopping play to fix a clock issue or something...certainly has no clue about the crap going on in the key. Neither does the T. :eek:

All I will say is that the players still on the bench would be the only ones left in the game. And I would probably suspend or forfeit the game for both teams and let the state figure out the rest. But it appears the officials were unaware of the situation. Sad.

Peace

I can't be certain, but even though it looks like he has an open hand "stop" type signal, his thumb might be at a low enough angle where's he's trying to signal, "4" to the bench, as in calling a foul. Hard to believe that all mechanics could be this lazy, as others have said, there's at least a decent chance he could've stopped this before it got to the level it did.

Wow, failure on so many levels. Terrible refereeing from C, terrible game management letting all those people on the floor, terrible coaching letting the bench players get away. Not much to learn here except don't ball watch and close down on shit like this.

I've had players look at each other crossly after a hard foul, so I'll close in to about 3-4 feet and even say "easy" so the players know I'm close by and watching--and ready to address or penalize any extracurriculars if need be.

Regarding the video, the center official seemed totally oblivious to the contact that happened right in front of him. I have to agree that stepping in to get the foul on White #4 could have helped minimize the chance the brouhaha even occurred.

That is because he couldn't see the initial forearm chuck from where he is standing. He is too low and gets straight-lined. Put him a step above the FTE and he has a quality look at this contact. Positioning and angles make all the difference.
While I'm on that point the T is way too high and not connected to the play. He can't help the C from way out there and that is the secondary failure here. Put him down around the 28-foot line and he will be far more comfortable whistling the contact just inside the FT lane.

PS Finally a fight video of an actual fight! That was a true melee.