She didn't attack the ball!!!

[Scrapper1]

Basketball refs have a long-held tradition of sharing comments by coaches, when they reveal that they have no idea what the rules are. Here's mine from this weekend's convention center tournament.

Team A's first contact is an overpass. Team A's back-row setter jumps to try to save the pass. When the ball enters the plane of the net, Team B's hitter attacks the ball, which then contacts Team A's setter whose hand is clearly above the height of the net.

I call the back-row block. Routine call. Easy.

Team A doesn't agree because, in the words of the head coach "she didn't attack the ball!"

So I show the illegal block signal again, thinking maybe she misunderstood what I called. To no avail.

She sends the captain to inform me that the setter wasn't attacking the ball. I tried to explain that she can't block either, but I don't think the captain understood. Finally, just had to say, we're moving on. Oh well.

[bob jenkins]

Ha Ha.

I finally had to tell a captain that it's the setters job NOT to be hit by the ball when his hands* are above the net. That seemed to satisfy him.

*yes, I know the rule is "any body part" but I didn't want to get into that.

[Scrapper1]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

I call the back-row block. Routine call. Easy.

Just in the unlikely event that some newbie reads this thread in the future and thinks "Jeez, I wish it were easy. I can't find a back row block to save my life", let me say that it's taken 15 years for this to become a routine play for me. (The first 10 of those years, I had literally zero training.) I was not trying to be boastful. Sorry if it came across that way.