Box out or no call? (Video)
 

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It took me a long time to find this video. Now the IHSA thankfully put on many of their State Final games.

Peace

Foul on white #42 for the undercut.

Foul on white. He pushed the player towards the basket while the shot was up then undercut him when he tried to jump for the rebound by bending over and backing under the red player. It is borderline intentional (F1). No play on the ball at all and created a dangerous situation....a non-basketball play.

For me, in order to call a foul on a player for undercutting an opponent, I need to see a player jumping mostly vertically and the other player moving into his opponent's space. This is not what happened here.

Red #32 jumped into White #42. White #42 ducked in an attempt to avoid being contacted. For me, Red #32 is responsible for any contact that may occur, but in this case I believe the contact was incidental. No foul.

Yep.

The red player appears to jump backwards... not straight up/vertical. And when coming down the white player landed on the red player, and the red player bent over... for whatever reason. So it looks like no-call. Although, the white player was pushing the red player under the basket while the ball was in the air.

However, I can see how the white player may have been pushing still while the red player jumped, thus making it look like the red player jumped backwards and not vertically.

I honestly can't tell. Guess you had to be there.

LR, look at the feet of white #42. When the ball is shot and first caroms off the rim, his left foot is center lane. As he makes contact, he swings it all the way out toward the lane line which puts his butt under an airborne player. This is an undercut. Foul on white #42.

Good catch. I didn't see that until you pointed out his foot movement.

+1 foul.
I can see why the refs passed on it though as the commentators are saying.

For me, to call a foul on a player for undercutting, I need to see the opponent get undercut. Red may not be completely vertical in a labratory, but it's close enough in nature. I'm certainly not going to let white get away with the push and then the undercut.

I'm with Camron on this, I'd consider, but not likely go with, an intentional foul. White's only intent here is to undercut red.

I would not consider going intentional here but agree on everything else.

This is a clear undercut and illegal displacement here. I dont understand why we would require a player to jump perfectly straight when another player is illegally taking his entire lower body out from under him.

I think if he did it again, I'd go with the intentional.

I've got a foul for an undercut on white.

What I would have liked to have seen is the positioning of the officials in the play and see if they were in proper position to see this rebounding action. This seems like it'd be a pretty easy get for the slot to get.

#42 bent over then proceeded to back himself underneath #32. That is a bush league play at best. He wasn't avoiding contact, he was being a troublemaker.

I can go along with that.

Its clearly a foul but I see it more as a poorly executed, and illegal, attempt to box out. I don't see it as the nefarious act you and Cameron are suggesting.

easy foul on white. This is also where white and his coach will cry "oh he was boxing out" and another classic "what else is he supposed to do?"

I'm with La Rikardo here and I wonder if it's our soccer officiating that's causing us to see this differently.

Red jumps back and over white. White doesn't move under red until red's butt lands on his shoulder. There is no significant movement by white after the jump and before he is contacted by red.

Before reading the rest of the comments I would have said it's an easy foul on red.

He can do whatever he wants, coach, but that contact is a foul.

I wouldn't call it intentional, but I wouldn't try to talk a partner out of an intentional foul here either.

To me the foul takes place before the red player ever jumps. He is displaced and backed down until he is almost under the rim. Yes the white player undercuts him also, but the displacement came before that ever happened.

I see white player fronting the post. Shot goes up and he starts pushing red under the basket as Camron says. It's easier to shove him under basket than get around in front of him. White keeps doing it, Red resists. White bends to push more and does. Red jumps for ball...white keeps pushing but no resistance. Undercut. Clearly a foul on white and ends up dangerous.

Usually involves shorter v taller player. Clearly foul but i don't see intentional…but, I didn't see the rest of the game.

When I first saw this play, I thought it was a no-call. I thought that the white player was just staying under the guy jumping on top of him. Now I am not so sure. I have not been able to see this play but only look on memory for the most part. Well now I think this was a foul. I looked at this game just to see that play as I was reviewing some comments about this game. Glad I saw this play again. My initial opinion has changed.

And no, the game was not particularly rough, but there were a lot of fouls called in this game. I will let that stand there. ;)

Peace

Bonus points for using "nefarious" in a sentence.

This isn't a hill I'd die on, to be honest.

figured that:)

This pretty much sums up what I was thinking. First time (first few times actually) viewing I thought no call, I thought the red player jumped up and over, and let to his own fall. While I still think that is partially true, I can now see white continuing to back into red's initial spot, which is why I'd have a foul. I still don't think it's as obviously clear cut as others though

I'm in this camp. Now when would you blow the whistle? As the shot's in the air or after the ball hits the rim (possession consequence)?

I'm working on delaying my whistle. Did so on a rebounding foul this past weekend. Was not an undercut, but the same concept.

Personally, I will wait to see if there is a possession consequence - or, in other words, and advantage gained by the white player. So my whistle would have gone off before the red player jumped (assuming I even saw this and wasn't looking to see who was in the stands or something stupid like that).

Did so too in a game last week however my delayed whistle might have been too delayed. Coach was hollering (not that I give a rat's rear end...) about already having the ball and moving up the court...

I will wait as long as seeing whether or not the shot is going in...once it is clearly missed, I put a whistle on it.

+1

I see White #45, not #42. He is not boxing out. Boxing out is screening, not displacing, and #45 started displacing just after the release. I'm waiting to see where the rebound is going, and it clearly affected the play.

#45 White, pushing.

I think you are either (a) a former point guard who has never been undercut on a rebound or (b) a really nice guy who can't see the evil in others.

I don't think so. If this was a cross into the PA in a soccer game, I've got an easy foul on white, too. (And likely a piece of plastic to go with it -- but a bit hard to precisely translate the play to soccer.)

The soccer connection may certainly have something to do with our shared minority opinion, because I also have a hard time seeing it any way other than this. In soccer, one of the ten fouls punishable by a direct free kick (or penalty kick, if committed in the player's penalty area), is when a player jumps at an opponent in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless, or with excessive force. This foul is called occasionally when a player jumps to head the ball and jumps with some degree of horizontal velocity into an opponent, usually in a careless manner. If that opponent does not also jump to challenge for the ball, he'll often duck in an effort to avoid contact. I usually don't see this as a "dirty" play, I just see it as the player making an effort to protect himself.

That's the sort of thing I see here. Perhaps the player in white was trying to box out and instead he displaced an airborne opponent. But, right or wrong, that's not my first reaction to seeing a play like this. If the airborne player is jumping at an opponent (by which I mean the airborne player has some noticeable degree of horizontal velocity in addition to trying to jump straight up) and the opponent makes some sort of motion that looks to me like he's protecting himself, my instinct is to give that player the benefit of the doubt.

I recognize that when I'm one of very few here who would not call a foul while some other experienced officials are saying this is borderline intentional, I might need to adjust my perception on a play like this.

Beyond Eastshire and so cal lurker, I know there are at least two other officials here with soccer experience. AremRed already weighed in and had a foul on the player in white. Now I'm curious to see what Nevadaref thinks.

As for a soccer equivalent.....consider a cross or corner kick (as you started to suggest) where the defender doesn't try to go up for a header with the offensive player but, instead, runs through his legs as the offensive player is peaking and meeting the ball with his head.

The jumping player only jumped a little away from the basket and towards the opponent because he had been pushed to a location that was more under the rim. No player goes to that location on their own for rebounding. That is the first foul.

Then, if you watch the white players feet after he bends over, that tells you everything you need to know. If he was protecting himself, he would be stepping away, not further under the person that was in the air. Instead, he bent over and continued to drive himself further under the airborne player, intending to undercut the player in the air. That is what makes it borderline intentional. He made no play on the ball and created contact that was dangerous.

I have also done a bit of soccer...albeit not nearly as long as basketball and not nearly at the same level.

Looking at the video again, I see that I didn't originally notice that the initial contact occurred before the player in red jumped. I have changed my mind about this play and I fully agree with your comments.

Whew. I was gonna say that you might need to re-evaluate how you see undercutting on the soccer field!!

I agree the first foul on white for pushing red under the basket.

However, once there, red fouls white by jumping back into him.

Yes, after red lands on white's back, white gives him a bit of a backside but if we're concentrating only on the jumping action and not the initial push, red is still fouling first by not jumping vertically.

Red jumps back into white because if he would have jumped straight up he's nowhere near enough to the ball to have any chance at rebounding.

I'm standing by a foul on white on the the jump.

Red has no requirement to jump vertically unless white is stationary (he's not). If both red and white had jumped up, they would met from equally favorable positions...no foul at all. Red only lands on white's back because white moved into/under red and took reds legs out from under him.

Citiation? If red had jumped straight up and white jumped into his back would that have been legal since red was moving?

If they both jumped straight, agreed. If red jumped as he did in the video and white jumped straight, I have a foul on red.

I strongly disagree. Red jumps to the ball which is behind white. He tries to jump through white which causes him to land on white's shoulders. Red bridges himself here.

Go around, not through. Red goes through here.

Relatively good guesses.

I am a former PG and just about everyone, other than my wife, considers me a pretty nice guy.

But I have been undercut playing basketball, more than once. And my day job involves working on federal policy in DC. I see the evil in others on a daily basis. I've also seen lots of dirty plays and called my share of intentional fouls over the years.

On this play though, I don't see the kid intentionally trying to undercut, injure, or engage in dangerous play. And I don't see excessive contact or any of the elements of an intentional foul.

Hell, some people don't even think it was a foul on white at all. I think its a clear foul but intentional would not even enter my thought process on this one.

Not what I meant....I was referring to horizontal movement, not jumping straight up.
If that was all that white did, then I'd agree. But that isn't what he did.
You really need to watch that video again.

The only reason that ball is behind white is that the white player kept bumping and shoving the red player farther and farther under the basket while the shot was in the air. White then finishes it off with a dirty move of submarining red by bending over and continuing to move under him. There is nothing acceptable about that.

Even if the first shove didn't occur, I'm still calling a foul on white. They were both moving towards each other. White made no play on the ball. His only action was to undercut red. Whether red had jumped towards him or not is irrelevant in this play. If white had, instead, tried to go up for the ball, then yes, maybe foul on red. But, again, whites only action was to take reds legs out from under him....and that would have still happened even if red had jumped perfectly straight.

No way I'm penalizing red for his actions after being displaced from the spot he had earned or when his opponents only action is to take out his legs.

I think we're agreed in principle and we're just seeing the sequence different (although I don't think white has to make a play to draw a foul, he merely needs to hold his ground prior to being contacted by red).

I've watched the video about 20 times now and I still don't see white bridging red until white is hit in the shoulder by red's butt. If red jumps straight up, he doesn't get bridged but when you bridge yourself, it's a foul on you.