Rndballref
20 Years Experience
Chicago, IL
Male, 60
For twenty years I officiated high school, AAU and park district basketball games, retiring recently. For a few officiating is the focus of their occupation, while for most working as an umpire or basketball referee is an avocation. I started ref'ing to earn beer money during college, but it became a great way to stay connected to the best sports game in the universe. As a spinoff, I wrote a sports-thriller novel loosely based on my referee experiences titled, Advantage Disadvantage
Actually, a dribble ends when you put two hands on the ball. But even if you have not dribbled already, putting two hands on the ball on the floor is normally called double dribble.
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I understand your point. In nearly all sports, coaches make moves that help determine the outcome of games; time outs, call in plays etc. I think the NFHS needs to decide if they want to completely eliminate the "everyone in the gym knows it is an intentional foul" being ignored or called as a common, or leave it unevenly called as it is. In the past they have tried to issue guidelines, but the gray area for interpretation is a mile wide. Don't know how much noise they hear about this issue, but NFHS has not settled on a good solution yet.
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There is no provision in the mechanics or rule books for NFHS. In fact, although one official is designated as the "referee" and the other two are "umpire 1" and "umpire 2", the referee is not enpowered to overrule the others. Here's how I handled this: In the pre-game I asked my partners to agree to this. If they think I got the call wrong, approach me and tell me what you saw, and I will decide whether to overrule myself based on your input. That way, we could undue a really bad missed call, but if I passed on a call for my own reasons (advantage disadvantage for example) I could ignore my partner's input. Also, if I changed my call I could better explain to a coach why it was reversed. Most of the people I worked with agreed to use this system.
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The referee (as opposed to the other officials) has the responsibility to decide matters upon which the timer and scorekeeper disagree. Furthermore, "the referee shall make decisions on any points not specifically covered in the rulebook."
There is no explicit provision in the rule book to address the situation you describe. So, the referee has to decide what would be consistent with the intent of the rulebook.
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The rulebook provisions of the 3 second rule is that a player cannot be in the lane for 3 seconds or more while his teamates have established team possession in their frontcourt.
If a player has either foot on the edge or line which defines yhe lane, he is in the lane.
There is an interesting exception to a 3 count. A player can legally be in the lane for as much as 6 seconds as follows: he is in the lane for a count if 2 and receives the ball, the holds the ball for 2 counts and dribbles - he gets another 2 count. Then he must shoot .
But to your point, most experienced officials rarely call 3 seconds. You see newer referees at freshman games call it way too often. Most officials are taught that 3 seconds should only be called if and only if it results in an undue advantage. Thr principal is called Advantage Disadvantage. This means that when it is called it is ususlly a late call.. for example a player is camped out and normally when the shot goes up the 3 seconds restrictions are lifted, but if that player gets the rebound because he was there for more than 3 seconds the official should call it then.
A good preventative officiating move is for the official to shoo players out of the paint verbally to avoid having to call 3 secs too often.
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The 3 second area (the paint) is defined by the outer edge of the lines. Any part of your foot on the line puts you in the paint.
The outer line on the court is out of bounds, so on a throw in the player who is throwing the ball in could step on the line before throwing in as long as the foot does not step on the court.
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Out of bounds calls should not be missed because in a 3 man crew, every line has an official with primary responsibility. If this really is a trend it is not good.
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