Referees

As a disclaimer, I qualified as a table official last year, which will obviously colour my perspective on this discussion.

I don’t want to be overly defensive; I think officials should be open to scrutiny and use criticism to improve their performance. However, I would like to respond to a couple of points in this thread.

Some football coaches do sit in the stands rather than on the touch line. I am not a football coach but I assume this is because the playing surface is so large and a higher vantage point gives you a better perspective. That said, the majority of football (and basketball) coaches sit on the touch line.

But I don’t see how this relates to officiating a basketball game, played on a smaller court, with fewer players. Certainly you are better placed to see a foul, goaltend or a foot out of bounds if you are three feet away from the play, rather than sitting in the stands. More importantly, you are better placed because of the training you’ve undertaken. I was a fan for many years before deciding to officiate and while I thought I had a reasonably good understanding of the game, it’s certainly much stronger since becoming qualified. The way I observe a game - and in particular the level of concentration involved - is completely different as an official compared to a spectator.

I was at the Cup Final on Sunday and had a good view of the call in question. It is unfortunate but on occasion, referees will be unsighted, especially when there are 13 bodies moving quickly in the half court. In this particular case, the nearest umpire was unsighted by a player. She admitted this to the crew chief, who was also unsighted so they upheld the original call. I do not see what else could have been done. This was not a matter of competence, it was simply unfortunate.

I don’t think the reaction of the bench or fans is relevant to the quality of the officiating. To illustrate this, Vince Macauley was claiming it was a Lions ball despite knowing that it wasn’t. And earlier in the game, fans questioned calls that were proved correct on the big screen and some celebrated a clear goaltend as a legal block.

Apologies for the length of this post.

Utter nonsense. Nobody who doesn’t do the job should offer an opinion or comment?

Suppose you don’t vote as never having been Prime Minister who are you to influence how the country is run?

Never offer an opinion on music never having had a number one?

No opinion outside of your own job basically?

I haven't seen any noticeable improvements with 3 man crews. Sure, we get more calls, but there remains the belief they all need to blow their whistle to remain important.
Apparently we can look forward to the joy of 3 in D1 next year. Not that we've been consulted....

DPR I’m not sure I read your post correctly, we’re you officiating? As you seem to know a lot, regarding the out of bounds, how do you know what Vince knew?

I wasn't officiating at the final. I was at the game as a spectator, sat close to the incident.

I saw the ball deflect off a Lions player right in front of Vince, I then saw him appeal for the call, although he had clearly seen his player deflect the ball.

I imagine most spectators had a good view of the incident. I assume it's also visible on the broadcast.

I am not particularly criticising Macauley for his reaction. I mentioned it in response to the suggestion by another poster that you could tell whether a game had been poorly officiated by the reaction of the bench. I would say this example shows why the bench reaction is irrelevant to the call.

Of course they have a poor grasp of the rules. The average bbl hardly knows where their team are in the league if we're honest.

Jan 30, 2019 9:40:20 GMT DPR said:

Jan 29, 2019 23:59:03 GMT 3ptslam said:
DPR I’m not sure I read your post correctly, we’re you officiating? As you seem to know a lot, regarding the out of bounds, how do you know what Vince knew?


I wasn't officiating at the final. I was at the game as a spectator, sat close to the incident.

I saw the ball deflect off a Lions player right in front of Vince, I then saw him appeal for the call, although he had clearly seen his player deflect the ball.

I imagine most spectators had a good view of the incident. I assume it's also visible on the broadcast.

I am not particularly criticising Macauley for his reaction. I mentioned it in response to the suggestion by another poster that you could tell whether a game had been poorly officiated by the reaction of the bench. I would say this example shows why the bench reaction is irrelevant to the call.

I have said a few times now that Vince works the refs well, this is just a simple example but if you think of his position as a Club owner, BBL board member and coach you imagine weak refs giving him calls and others giving 50/50 calls to the opposition until the forth qtr
I always worry when Sharks get all the 50/50 calls early in the game as you know whats going to happen
Sad really

I’m sure refs know the rules far better than most fans
I can understand mistakes being made
But with 3 refs, a mistake made by one ref could easily be rectified by one of the other 2 refs surely they can’t all see the same play and make the same mistake. But very very rarely do you see a call overturned . Their default seems to be to back each other up at all costs
Too many refs want to be the star of the game,

Consistency is very important, if you’re going to allow aggressive play that’s fine, but keep that ethos throughout the game for both teams

And stop calling negligible contact ( all players bump ) and then ‘miss’ an obvious attempt to push a player out of court.

Do I know all the rules NO
Can I notice a travel - apart from the bleedin obvious ones NO
Can I count 3 seconds in the key YES
Can I hear a slap YES
Inbound times is it 4 or 5 seconds or 6 or 7
Would I want to ref NO

Home calls are semi-understandable (we’re all human and they tend to referee the same home games, except at the EIS where home calls are like rocking horse)

But I would love refs to watch the videos of every game they are in charge of, and (hopefully) look at them through a self critical pair of glasses.

I'll also answer the question of whether I think I could referee any better

Probably YES

Even though I admittedly don't know all the minutia of the rules, at Least I would get the same call consistently wrong, and I would also talk to the other refs, if I thought they had got something wrong
and I would ( if on reflection thought I had made a bod call ) change my decision in the interests of doing the correct thing . This is too often seen as a weakness , although I find it can be a strength.
I would also be more willing to listen to coaches comments without jumping for the warning of a Technical or giving one straight away.
( Unless it was clearly just an abusive rant )
And I would try my best to have a rapport with all players both before & after games

I just don't think I'm fit enough to keep up with the play nowadays though.

you're obviously an expert on everything, bigz

It makes you wonder why anyone who is not so amazingly expert would bother to go to a game / play ball in the park, as we are all so utterly out of our depth