Can Refs Help Improve Youth Play (Videos)

[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.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by 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.

I'm done, too. I tried to be helpful, I tried to explain to him how things were.

He came back sarcastic. He came back acting like we were the ones who have no clue.

That's fine -- he has no idea what the purpose of a basketball official is. For the most part, we're calling fouls when a team is disadvantaged -- it's our job to keep a game fair according to the rules, not according to a coach's perception of what constitutes the "right" way or "wrong" way to play defense.

Those defenders can play defense with their arms all day. One of three things will happen:

(1) B will pick up a lot of fouls when an A player is disadvantaged or when they commit an automatic.

(2) The A players will not be disadvantaged, but B will be by putting themselves out of position.

(3) B will get very lucky and get the ball clean every time. This is unlikely.

[ccrroo]

Originally Posted by Rich

I'm done, too. I tried to be helpful, I tried to explain to him how things were.

He came back sarcastic. He came back acting like we were the ones who have no clue.

That's fine -- he has no idea what the purpose of a basketball official is. For the most part, we're calling fouls when a team is disadvantaged -- it's our job to keep a game fair according to the rules, not according to a coach's perception of what constitutes the "right" way or "wrong" way to play defense.

Those defenders can play defense with their arms all day. One of three things will happen:

(1) B will pick up a lot of fouls when an A player is disadvantaged or when they commit an automatic.

(2) The A players will not be disadvantaged, but B will be by putting themselves out of position.

(3) B will get very lucky and get the ball clean every time. This is unlikely.

Apologies for the sarcasm. It was to be directed at the rules themselves. Not the guys that enforce them (or take their time to try to explain them).
Thanks again. I've learned a lot and will watch games much differently (and try to teach other parents and coaches).