Can Refs Help Improve Youth Play (Videos)

[ccrroo]

If your still game, here are 2 more that confused me. Especially, in light of some of the stuff I've learned (contact not affecting the outcome type stuff -- I know poorly worded).

(I'm trying to embed this time, so I hope it works)

Video 6
Ref calls a block foul. I'm too biased and don't know the technicalities well enough to say otherwise. But in this case, the offense doesn't seem hindered. So why is the foul necessary?

http://youtu.be/CkEWlSeDq9Q



Video 7
No foul called here.
I see defender 1 sort of on top of the dribbler in a bad position but he's strong enough to dribble through, so ok (i'm learning). Then I see defender 2 cut across. And as the dribbler shoots, his elbow and leg hit defender 2 which causes an air ball. If vid 1 and 6 are blocks because the defender didn't have perfect position during contact, why is this different. The defender isn't in perfect condition during the contact.

http://youtu.be/J19VdVn35Jw

[Rich1]

Originally Posted by ccrroo

If your still game, here are 2 more that confused me. Especially, in light of some of the stuff I've learned (contact not affecting the outcome type stuff -- I know poorly worded).

(I'm trying to embed this time, so I hope it works)

Video 6
Ref calls a block foul. I'm too biased and don't know the technicalities well enough to say otherwise. But in this case, the offense doesn't seem hindered. So why is the foul necessary?

http://youtu.be/CkEWlSeDq9Q



Video 7
No foul called here.
I see defender 1 sort of on top of the dribbler in a bad position but he's strong enough to dribble through, so ok (i'm learning). Then I see defender 2 cut across. And as the dribbler shoots, his elbow and leg hit defender 2 which causes an air ball. If vid 1 and 6 are blocks because the defender didn't have perfect position during contact, why is this different. The defender isn't in perfect condition during the contact.

http://youtu.be/J19VdVn35Jw

In the top video, the defender did not establish legal guard position before contact was made. Since LGP is actually defined by rule (4-23) it gets a call. This is not a situation where we are looking at the offense being hindered to determine if the contact was legal because the rule tells us its not. Therefore, foul.

In the bottom video, from this angle I would agree with you but I also have three reasons why this wasn't called. First, the ref had a different angle and although to us it looks like the contact made disrupted the shot the official may have seen the contact as marginal or could have seen it as a pass and not a shot so the offense was not hindered. Second, the ref may be inexperienced and is still learning to judge contact on these playes. Third, maybe he just missed it -- it happens.

Its also important to remember that not all contact is the same no matter how much it looks like the same contact.

[ccrroo]

Originally Posted by Rich1

In the top video, the defender did not establish legal guard position before contact was made.

Defender 2 in the bottom video isn't required to be in legal guarding position?
It may not show on the video, but his elbow is hit by the defender and his leg is kicked out. And the ball barely gets of out his hand, as a result.

(warning- sarcasm -- if the dribbler wasn't constantly having to fight (be a strong dribbler) around defenders making contact out of legal guarding position, then maybe he would've been strong enough to fight through the incidental contact to his elbow and leg)

[Raymond]

also, you should join the local officials association. you could work the age groups other than your team. this way you would be helping out from both sides of the fence.

[deecee]

This is MS. You get what you get. I mean what if we try and explain advantage/disadvantage, or Rythm/Speed/Balance/Quickness, or even evaluating a play from start to finish.

Sometimes fouls call themselves and sometimes they don't. At your level I highly double many of the advanced officiating techniques are being applied. Most likely it's call what needs to be called, let the rest go.

You're over thinking MS basketball. The kids aren't that good for the most part. The coaches are usually at the same level or worse than the kids. The officials are 2 guys or gals wearing black shorts/pants with striped shirts and a whistle, and they are whoever the assignor could get to cover the game.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

I tend to think that officiating at that level is commensurate to the coaching level and playing level. the mistakes made by the officials are on par with the mistakes made by the players and the coaches

I repeat the above, and emphasize the below.

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

also, you should join the local officials association. you could work the age groups other than your team. this way you would be helping out from both sides of the fence.

No conversation we have here is going to change the officiating of or your relationship with the officials doing your middle school games.

[Rich1]

Originally Posted by ccrroo

Defender 2 in the bottom video isn't required to be in legal guarding position?

The defender did not make contact because he was trying to take a "guarding" position on the dribbler so we would be judging it based on incidental vs illegal. LGP becomes a factor when a defender is trying to place his body in the path of an offensive opponent. The defender here appears to be rushing over to attack the ball because the dribbler beat the first guy.

[ccrroo]

Originally Posted by Rich1

The defender did not make contact because he was trying to take a "guarding" position on the dribbler so we would be judging it based on incidental vs illegal. LGP becomes a factor when a defender is trying to place his body in the path of an offensive opponent. The defender here appears to be rushing over to attack the ball because the dribbler beat the first guy.

Dang it. I came back.
I thought the defender tried to place his body in the path.
But if attacking the ball allows for this contact (including tripping in this case). That's what we should be teaching. Attack the ball as it seems to allow for lots of contact. Especially on strong ball handlers.

Now it seems we are back to semantics. In this case, whether he tried to place his body in the path or he attacked the ball, the result was the same. The dribbler/shooter had his RSBQ affected.

And the irony is that neither defender ever touch the ball. They only touched the dribbler. In the first case, he was able to strongly dribble through. And in the second case, his strength gave out. Those are incredible rules.

More irony. The final foul count in this game was probably 25 to 10 (3 of our players fouled out). I posted 2 of our fouls. Both blocks. One of the hardest to teach and officiate. But I didn't post the other 23 because they looked like fouls to me. I posted what I thought were missed fouls by our opponents. I should go back and apply what I've learned to understand why our other 23 fouls were called.

Last irony -- we are the team trying to play defense with out feet (admittedly, a mistake and poor coaching).

[Rich1]

Originally Posted by ccrroo

Dang it. I came back.
I thought the defender tried to place his body in the path.
But if attacking the ball allows for this contact (including tripping in this case). That's what we should be teaching. Attack the ball as it seems to allow for lots of contact. Especially on strong ball handlers.

Now it seems we are back to semantics. In this case, whether he tried to place his body in the path or he attacked the ball, the result was the same. The dribbler/shooter had his RSBQ affected.

And the irony is that neither defender ever touch the ball. They only touched the dribbler. In the first case, he was able to strongly dribble through. And in the second case, his strength gave out. Those are incredible rules.

More irony. The final foul count in this game was probably 25 to 10 (3 of our players fouled out). I posted 2 of our fouls. Both blocks. One of the hardest to teach and officiate. But I didn't post the other 23 because they looked like fouls to me. I posted what I thought were missed fouls by our opponents. I should go back and apply what I've learned to understand why our other 23 fouls were called.

Last irony -- we are the team trying to play defense with out feet (admittedly, a mistake and poor coaching).

First, you have to remember that we are talking about judgements here. As refs, its our job to make these judgements. Different refs under different situations might make different jidgements. As a former ciach I understand your perspective and can see what you are seeing. But as a ref I know that calls such as tese are almost never as simple or clear cutbas coaches think they should be. You will just have to accept that the refs are doing their best to apply the rules correctly and make sound judgements.

Second, you have to remember that refs have varied levels of experience and ability just like players and coaches. As others have pointed out, many nights you will not have the least qualified refs because we all had to start some where and middle school is where refs start. On the other hand, when very experienced refs like myself pick up amiddle school game we get a lot of grief because we see more and call it tighter than they're used to.

Third, please continue to teach your kids properly. They need to play defense with their feet (not their hands) and get into proper position. They need to know how to take a charge. And they also need to know how to play through contact. What you teach them now will serve them later. Most of your posts lead me to believe you are doing a goid job with your kids. Don't let plays that can be judged in different ways or bad calls cause you to start teaching them to do things that will hurt them at higher levels when the officiating improves.

[Pantherdreams]

Originally Posted by ccrroo

Dang it. I came back.
I thought the defender tried to place his body in the path.
But if attacking the ball allows for this contact (including tripping in this case). That's what we should be teaching. Attack the ball as it seems to allow for lots of contact. Especially on strong ball handlers.

Now it seems we are back to semantics. In this case, whether he tried to place his body in the path or he attacked the ball, the result was the same. The dribbler/shooter had his RSBQ affected.

And the irony is that neither defender ever touch the ball. They only touched the dribbler. In the first case, he was able to strongly dribble through. And in the second case, his strength gave out. Those are incredible rules.

More irony. The final foul count in this game was probably 25 to 10 (3 of our players fouled out). I posted 2 of our fouls. Both blocks. One of the hardest to teach and officiate. But I didn't post the other 23 because they looked like fouls to me. I posted what I thought were missed fouls by our opponents. I should go back and apply what I've learned to understand why our other 23 fouls were called.

Last irony -- we are the team trying to play defense with out feet (admittedly, a mistake and poor coaching).

My brother in law coaches at a local HS. He had similar complaints not with officiating but the way rules got enforced by officials in another district where he had to play. He tried to teach his kids to play with their feet and help drawing charges. So when there was a collision with offense that was attacking hard they had accelerated enough that it was a train wreck and something was called. Now and then a charge or push but often a block. A lot of borderline but thats the reality of judgement calls, not his beef. The other teams in this area defend with a lot of contact on the ball carrier never allowing them to get seperation or any head of steam at all. So his ball carriers wouldn't ever go hard, or would straighten up and try to do something else. Resulting in his team (that he is seeing as less physical) getting more calls against then the team who is more physical.

Solution for him was time, weights, sacrifice. After a couple of seasons in the weight room his team eventually got strong enough to fight through the initial bumps to turn the corner and either finish (they aren't used to needing to help) or continuing through contact until they official is forced to call a foul (they are carrying the player, they make the player drag them to the ground, etc). Now they are fine in those situations.


In your situation you are a middle school coach. Now this is totally my opinion but for what its worth:

A) If you teach your kids to defend properly they will be better off in the long run. They will know how to defend when reaching and grabbing are not enough to turn over a good strong HS ball carrier. These other kids/teams will not have anything to fall back on.

B) You are not just dealing with the all the rules you know, rules you don't, rules interps that you are learning about here. Every call in your games has all those elements but also the reality that you've got officials who are most likely not even top officials, you've got the perception that kids are unskilled and out of control, you've got coaching/playing/officiating that is not really high level. So now even if we tell you what the rule is and how it should be called and you understand, between the other team, your kids abilities/size, officials ability, interest level, desire . . . you are not going to get things called as consistently or accurately as we are all talking about here.

[bob jenkins]

I read this thread at first, then I skimmed through parts of the rest before I gave up.

I did see where the coach asked "remember tht title of this thread -- Can Refs Help Improve Youth Basketball.?"

As the coach surmises, we cannot. That's because we do not have the ability (at least in the specific sense) of getting the rules changed to match what the coach thinks would be better for youth basketball.