DSU/NCCU Video Request (ESPNU) (Video)
 

Please Vid Gurus,

Last play of the 2nd half, 3 point shot with 0.4 left. Fouled call.

Opinion on the call.

Also, after all the replays, I still don't see any of the officials signaling a foul.

PS: chance to see an official with facial hair on his chin.

Taking a wild stab here, I'm guessing we're talking Delaware St. vs North Carolina Coastal?

North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC.

MEAC contest.

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I see the shooter realize someone is flying behind him and stick his foot back to make that defender run into it. no call. I didnt see contact up top. Saw 3 guys with the 3 signal up but no fist. How'd it end?

(i didnt catch facial hair. il'l look again for that.)

Player missed final 2 free throws, lost by 1.

Facial hair not visible in this clip.

BTW, based on subsequent free throws, I'm assuming Trail called the foul.

Awful.
There absolutely is a whistle. There is not a fist in the air by anyone.
From the Trail's gestures to the teams after the horn, he must have been the one to blow the whistle because he appears to be the only one who is aware that a foul has been called.
Making this call from his position deep in the backcourt is sick. He has no angle to determine if there was contact. Turns out there wasn't anything illegal.
Furthermore, I believe that both the Lead and Center ran too far and put themselves in poor spots from which to observe a pull-up 3pt shot. With that little time remaining there is no need to run all the way down to the normal home locations for a half court set. It would be more intelligent officiating to anticipate a long shot and take a position which provides a quality look at that.

the center is way too far to the side.

Btw, let's say the trail called the foul and let's also say that the center was in closer and had a good look at it. Would you be ok with the center coming over and telling the trail that it wasn't a foul, rule it as an inadvertent whistle?

The trail actually has a good angle to see the contact by the defender on the shooter's leg as he was passing him by.

No.

There was contact. That much is clear. Whether it was a foul or not is judgment. Neither official should be telling the other it wasn't a foul.

Agree. He was in a poor position to see if there was body contact but he had a good view of the contact that did occur.

No.

How many times in basketball have you seen another official go to another and tell them their foul call wasn't a foul (based solely on the contact alone)? I'll tell you right now, I've never seen it.

different situation than here where the trail saw contact.

I was in the stands watching a game and doing the next one. Near the end, one of the D players(and a crafty one at that) did a complete flop on the inbounds play. I've seen him do it before in previous games but here the official called a foul on the offense. This was on an inbound play so the defender made liked he had been pushed off. The second official had a clear look at it and I talked to him after the game and he said he saw the flop but didn't want to come over and change the call. I'd have went over and talked to my partner about the call if I saw the play.

Good luck with that. :rolleyes:

Again I ask, when was the last time, in a basketball game with actual trained officials, you saw one official go to the other and try and talk him out of a foul based solely on the amount of contact?

None that I can think of.
But if one ref clearly sees it is a flop. This is a player who I knew and he was good. He led the league in scoring actually. But he also was known to do a flop once in a while, good acting job and would fall over and really ham it up. Not as bad as that Lance Stephenson play a couple of weeks ago but something along those lines.
The ref doing the inbounds may get fooled into thinking it is a foul as his eyes may be off somewhere else, so he reacts to the player falling down and assumes it is a foul. If the other refs on the court can see that it is a flop then I don't have an issue with them coming over and telling the calling official what happened.

Funny you should bring that up. I was at a camp last year where an NFL white hat was a guest speaker. Years ago he officiated basketball but today only does football. He said, rhetorically, "You know, in football we pick up flags all of the time. In basketball you'll sometimes come together on an out-of-bounds call, but why don't you ever come together on fouls?" I have to admit, football seems to be way ahead of us on the issue of information sharing.

Granted our culture isn't going to change overnight, and in football, where the NFL officials to players ratio is 9:22 (ours is 6.6:22 in a three-man crew), more than one set of eyes is typically on the same matchup. But still, our culture is an obstinate one, isn't it?

I don't get it.

I had a foul at the end of a quarter of a JV girls' game last month. My fist went up, and stayed up for 5-10 seconds after the buzzer, so everyone knew we had a foul, and who ruled it.

Is this simply not an important detail officiating college games?

I think it was a combination of trying to decide what was more important (the attempt signal or the foul signal) and the fact that the whistling trail probably regretted it the instant he blew it. Brain kind of went into shutdown for a couple of seconds when he should have at least been vigorously closing down and selling the call.

Not his finest moment. I'll bet his next game is his best all season.

The key difference is that on the vast majority of flags in football, the play continues. In basketball, the play stops on our whistle. Every time.

Much more conducive to picking up flags on penalties than it is to try and change a foul. In football players get to keep playing and the play stands if you decide to pick up. As opposed to what would become several inadvertent whistles in basketball. Nobody wants that.

Its a lot of what makes basketball the most difficult sport to officiate IMO. You call a foul, you live and die with it for the most part. We all miss some. You just try to get better, learn from your mistakes, and be as accurate as you can.

Where do they keep the other 2 officials? :D

Back to the OP, I have a foul. Not only is there contact on the leg, there appears to be contact on the hip.

We all make mistakes because and there is no way to get them all right. We all have plays when our partners may call something we think is incorrect but that goes by quick. But I don't have an issue with correcting a mistake. In my first couple of season I had fouls that I took back and said inadvertent whistle. Plays when I anticipated the foul but it turned out there wasn't one. I've seen refs do that at all levels (Especially the NBA actually) but they just report the foul. They get booed, they know they screwed up but hey that's ref culture, you make a mistake, you stick with it and report the foul. Sometimes there isn't anything wrong with admitting you messed up. I don't want to a lot of second guessing with your partners and it opens up a huge can of worms if you have someone going over and saying they saw something different, but I do think there can be times when it is appropriate to overturn a whistle.
On this video, I don't have an issue with the foul although I don't think there was. But let's just imagine a different play, similar to this one, but where that the center ref saw the offensive player stick out his leg and make the contact. The trail ref calls a foul on the D. This is an last second and very crucial play. It is understandable the trail official got fooled. I would be 100% supportive of the center ref to say, "hold up" and quickly go over and have a discussion. If the calling ref wants to stick with it then that is fine, but I'd much rather have a talk here and getting the right call.

Terry McCauley???

Evidently you were at the same camp.

Great official. I was even more impressed with him as a person.

Nope.....just figured it out. Had an opportunity to referee with him his last year he did college hoops....

Excellent person off the field / court as well......

From a coach's perspective, what the heck is that defender doing being anywhere near making contact with the shooter on that play??? So frustrating!!!