Agreed. This is something that's good to pre-game so the official furthest from the play can try to stop kids from coming on the court and get the numbers of those that do.

In this case, the benches empty so it likely would not have been effective any way. And the real failure is on the coaches. But it is the only thing I see from the officials that could have been done differently.

Sometimes its gonna hit the fan and all you can do is protect yourself and get out of the way.

This clause should be in the rule book for HS. College has replay and more attentive coaches.

Wow,

I've seen a few hard Intentional Fouls like that and most of the time, when the officials step in immediately as they did here, the teams move on with the FTs. I didn't even think the foul was unusually dirty when I watched it, although it was certainly excessive.

Wish all states did this. Makes a lot of sense.

Can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic, but I'm not getting in the middle of a fight in a HS game. Wouldn't expect any of my officials to do so either.

Ugly situation. Good job by the new L in trying to get in there before it escalated. He did everything he could.

There were already at least two armed police officers on site. That's not a common occurrence in my neck of the woods. Maybe it is there or maybe game administration was being proactive.....

S.O.P. in these parts, even for private school games.

I had a bench clearing brawl in a girls game Friday night between the two bottom dwellers of the division. It went from zero to ninety in the span of maybe 5 seconds with both benches clearing and people from the stands (there couldn't have been more than 40 people watching) coming onto the court. There was no time to prevent anything and we just got the hell out of the way till the cops and school admins could get control. Then we forfeited the game since all players (except one who stayed on her bench) were ejected. It was a horrible game from the start and I only wished the fight had broken out in the first quarter so we didn't have to endure almost 4 full quarters of that game (the fight started with 1:50 left in the game).

I agree with the statement at the end...both schools should be embarrassed. I will never understand why people involved in a fight like this are not arrested and charged with assault something. Every person who came out of the stands should be charged. Every kid involved should be charged...

I can't remember the last time I was at a JV or V basketball game without police on site and I've worked in three different states (and I can't remember the last time I saw an unarmed police officer in general).

If true (and I take this information with ALL the grains of salt in existence), then some business should've been taken care of before the start of the game.

If refs had worked the JV game prior the the varsity game (or talked to the JV refs if they were only working the varsity game), they might've been able to get attention of players/coaches during the pregame... the phrase "handing out Ts like candy" comes to mind.

With all that said, however, I do not blame the officials for what happened... sometimes there's just nothing you can do.

On a typical Friday night in my area, that would mean needing 20-40 officers. That's insane. Times that by the number of Tuesdays, Fridays, and add in Saturdays (1/2 normal schedule) in the regular season, and those would be some staggering resource requirements.

How many high schools do you have in one city? I live in a pretty big metro area and the local city's cops are always on site for games. Luckily there were 2 officers on site last Friday night. It's pretty standard operating procedures in every state I've ever worked as well.

Not unusual here either. It's not uncommon to have one or two armed officers at a game, especially at the larger schools or where there is a known rivalry. On occasion we will see more - most I recall having at a game is eight.