Refereeing...A Plea

[Geew1992]

The rule that needs to change is the 5 fouls per quarter. In the men's game you shoot fouls at 7 fouls per half. So, the women, get no penalty for fouls 7,8, 9 per half. Allowing more fouls per half allows for more physical play with no downside.

Actually... the men need to catch up to the Women's game. The 5 fouls per quarter is way better

 

[WiseWillie]

The agenda is to popularize the game. Make it more interesting to a broader audience. This requires games to have drama. This requires the game to have competitive parity. This requires physicality be rewarded as it can neutralize the quality of play of one team over the other. This requires assigning Joe Vaszily to popular games (this last sentence is tongue in cheek).

Very true and had to chuckle about poor Joe V. Sure he doesn't plan on being biased (although some - many? - UConn fans may disagree) and certainly has taken his lumps on this forum.

The point you make about the agenda of ESPN, Fox and other media networks to popularize the game to appeal to a wider audience is definitely a probability as doing so means more $ for them and all of the entities including the schools, coaches and players involved in participating in and promoting sports in general. That in turn can affect the way officiating is being done.

What would be interesting is if a whistleblower from the officiating ranks would divulge whether the NCAA or the NBRA or NASO has provided any "unofficial" guidelines for officiating games - or whether it is just a way of officiating a game that refs learn early on as they join the ranks of the professional associations or even as they may informally communicate with each other. What would also be interesting is whether anyone has put together any data on the evaluation of officiating by coaches (anonymous of course) in each of the various conferences, both men's and women's. For example, we all can surmise where a certain unnamed coach would think of officiating in the Big East on the men's side. But what do all of the BE coaches think?

Maybe all of this bad mouthing of officials will go away once the NCAA approves AI robots with instantaneous electronic feedback for officiating. That may happen sooner rather than later as the the baseball gurus have decided to starting to replace umps with a robot with a mouthpiece. Even then you can expect some robots will get a rep and be considered better than others. ("Robot V stinks. Robot A is lot fairer") So whether a real person or robot the frustration and angst with calls or non calls will continue - but in the case of a robot electronically instead of physically. I don't know about you but I would rather yell a loud boo to a real, live person instead of some electronic thing that is programmed to ignore boo's.

 

[jaydee602]

What is the NCAA officiating agenda that leads them to not assigning the best refs to the tourney games? Why would the NCAA not want its best officials working these games?

The NCAA's acrchaic policy is to assign refs from every conference to the tournament. But some of those refs from the mid conferences might not be accustomed to the physicality of the major conference teams.
They also take the place of more experienced & higher rated refs.

 

[omshanti]

I'll agree with most of your comments up to a point because as much as a missed shot, a turnover or other inefficiency can affect a game, the overzealous calling of fouls - or the opposite non-calls on egregious fouls - creates an uncertainty in the players minds (as well as the coaches) that can last for the entire contest as they are unsure how best to react when they get fouled with no call or they are called for a foul with no contact. A missed shot or rebound is a part of the game that all players understand from the time they are in junior high. Too many bad calls or no calls especially at the Div I level should not occur or have to be expected.

Granted, refs are human and make mistakes. But due to the increase in the women's game it is certainly not the 1970's "girls basketball". The young women playing in college today are bigger, stronger and the product of high school basketball that has grown immeasurably over the last 15 years. It's no longer a dainty sport. With all that said, officiating hasn't kept up and there needs to be better overall caliber of experienced officials.

Plus chasticing fans to refrain from whining won't do it. Exuberant fans will always react negatively to a call that goes against their team. That's sports and that's the way it has always been and will always be. That's just something we live - and frankly need to accept - when we attend or watch a game. It's one part of what makes sports frustrating sometimes but also darn entertaining whether on the winning side or the other side.

Having played ‘girls basketball’ in the 70’s I can tell you that sometimes the officiating was suspect then, college and high school level. the girls that played in the 70’s were big and strong also so that has no bearing on the contempt for basketball officials now. there are inconsistencies because of human tendencies and biases. That and there are bad officials. Complaining about the officiating isn’t going to change anything. I thought the game was called pretty well yesterday. Perhaps a few more calls could have been called but I think they did a good job.

I don’t agree that some coaches teach ‘dirty’ tactics or overly aggressive or cheap shots. The three officials on the floor can’t see everything. if you’ve never officiated a game than you don’t know how hard the job actually is. Some officials call it a certain way but I don’t think the officials hate UConn or another school. That being said, I do think CC from Iowa gets more favorable calls going her way. I bet the media attention gets int the psyche of people, the same was we all have inherent biases.

 

[Blueballer]

The problem is that 95% of posters on any messageboard don’t understand the rules and often can’t judge whether a foul call was correct or not.

That's OK , neither do the refs (LOL)

 

[Gamecock69]

To any and all posters my main beef with officiating is the disposition of the charge/block/flop. This seems to be used by many teams when they cannot guard the offensive player. Just step in front of them and hope for the best. Or, on the other hand the exaggerated falling back at the slightest contact hoping for the charge call, and lastly the intentional lining up and blindsiding an offensive player instead of defending. All of these are dangerous to the players involved, and are not, in my opinion, in the spirit of the game. "Flopping" is taught. I thought also, that there was a rule against it. I have never seen it called.

It just seems that you are either setting someone up, giving up and standing in the way rather than defending, or stepping in the way hoping for the call to go your way. That is tough on officials and something many fans, including me, observe and continue to be dismayed about.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

I think if they were consistent, even within the same game, that would tamper a good portion of the grovelling. My ask isn't for perfection... just be consistent.

 

[darkstar1]

Topic relate, but not UConn: I didn't watch the Iowa game, but my friend, a retire coach texted me during the Iowa game ranting about just how horrible the reffing was. He isn't an Iowa supporter or detractor. I haven't spoken to him yet, but I'm curious if any boneyarders watched the game and have any input.

I watched the game. The reffing was at best inconsistent. I was it rooting for either team to win, but I thought the calls in the 4 rb 1/4 really benefitted Iowa. The game was closer than the final score. Touch fouls were called on W. Va that were not called on Iowa and at critical times. This was a case where the reffing MAY have decided the game.

 

[cwh20]

One need not be a very astute observer of the women's game today to fully grasp the fact that what we Neanderthals used to refer to as "girl's basketball" is rapidly evolving into something of a free-for-all. 'Tain't no dainty affair out there! The banging that we routinely witness on the floor is obviously reflective of pre-planned strategies that, like it or not, have simply become a part of today's game. Obviously, this renders the job of those who officiate the games infinitely more difficult...they can, if they wish, legitimately call way more fouls than they do, or they can elect not to. In most games, early on in those contests, it is apparent that the refs have either subscribed to a "let them play" attitude or are determined to take control, sometimes too aggressively, by calling everything in sight...which tends, alas, to ruin such games.

Last night's game vs Syracuse offers a good example of what I mean. I thought Nika was sensational in defending Syracuse's top scorer. Now, did she tend to have her hands all over that kid? You betcha! Had they so desired, the refs could have fouled Nika out in the first half! She didn't play dirty...she doesn't do that. But, tough-as-nails as she is, she defended with unabashed aggression.

The "plea" in the title of this thread is as follows: I beg my fellow posters on this forum to desist from constantly whining about officiating. Do blown calls affect the outcomes of games one way or the other? Of course they do...but not nearly so much as missed open shots, egregious turnovers, failing to box out, etc. And the calls, good and/or bad, tend to inevitably go both ways. According to their fans, a rival program from a school in Indiana has never actually lost a basketball game. On those occasions when they're on the wrong end of the final score, the refs were clearly against 'em. I hope we don't fall prey to that mentality. Show me a game our favorite team lost because of the refs...I'l show you a litany of blown plays by our team that were the true culprits. The whining doesn't become us, and, frankly, it's misplaced!

Missed shots, turnovers etc that are the team’s fault of course play a major part in who wins. DON’T mix those in with the ref calls. You’re missing the point that when the refs call a game poorly and maybe one sided it can swing the game. So a team that got screwed on an end of the game call is supposed to say they should have made more free throws or whatever? That’s ridiculous. If the game is even it’s even whether the teams missed tons of shots or not. That one really bad call at the end could be the deciding factor. It’s not whining if the call was really bad and not consistent with other calls made during the game. And then sometimes it really is whining if the call was consistent with other game calls. Bottom line here is that your team mistakes are not the same as bad calls going too often in one team’s favor.

 

[CB360]

Something I heard 6-8 months ago that made a lot of sense. A person associated with a pro league told what he knew about the degraded Officiating in all sports. I'm paraphrasing as I can't remember the exact words used. The reason officiating in sports is not what it use to be goes back 20-25 years, when the parents of young kids playing started verbally and in some cases physically abusing the Ref's. Instead of getting the experience needed to take the next steps from Rec, to H.S. to College to Pro leagues, the younger less experienced Ref's are Quitting early in their "Careers" because of the abuse from Parents". Again, makes a ton of sense to me!

 

[fang]

My slightly contrairian view is that the rapid evolution of wbb has left the refs, who have always been no better than mediocre, lagging behind. There needs to be more fouls called on the perimeter, where defenders are draped all over offensive players and every other screen is a moving screen, and less fouls called down low, where if a defender so much as twitches, it's a foul.

And while I'm thinking about it, a play that's come over from the men's game bugs me. The player with the ball runs at the defender. If the defender can't get out of the way, it's a blocking foul.

 

[Skeets]

Charge or block? A good call or a bad call too often depends on who you are rooting for. I personally think that many of these calls are a coin toss, and that can be irritating...

 

[WiseWillie]

Charge or block? A good call or a bad call too often depends on who you are rooting for. I personally think that many of these calls are a coin toss, and that can be irritating...

Yes, too often a coin toss but a ref has to consider the position of the feet which will be critical. Were the defensive players feet still moving or were they planted and stationary? If the former then it will/should be called a block and if stationary a charge.

But mistakes can be and are made because refs don't have instant replay and have to make a decision in a split second. No one who has ever been one can ever say being a ref is easy. Just knowing and anticipating where and when to position yourself to be able to see the floor clearly is a constant. No, refs don't get enough credit. It is a tough environment between the fans yelling out names, at least one of the coaches paid ten-twenty times and more than you screaming in your face, and even the players making NIL money more than you complaining. What a great gig.

 

[temery]

Complaining about referees has never, in the history of the world, ever changed anything.


Thread locked.