Cats vs Cats

[Billings Cat]

On nearly almost every level (high school through the NBA) there seems to be a huge credibility gap with officials. IMNSHO, it's a function of what's happened starting in the NBA and has ultimately trickled down to all levels now. The NBA clearly made the decision that the rules of the game should be applied selectively over time. For example, watch an NBA game-how many times do you see an obvious travel not called? It's not several times a game, it's in the double digits. And when a travelling violation is actually called a large percentage of the players are incredulous because they don't even know that they're not supposed to be able to do that. "Let them play" became the mantra and the game evolved from one of finesse with a physical component to a physical game with a very limited amount of finesse.

And as a result of the "selective enforcement", I think fans behave worse towards the officials than they ever have before. Why? Because when we are raised in a culture of laws and rules, it's easier to understand a missed call, but much harder to understand an official simply ignoring an obvious violation of the rules. Just this last week I saw and heard a perfect example of this first hand that demonstrates how this permeates right down to the high school level. At an intra-city girls' game in Billings a shot went up and on the rebound a defender went up for the ball and as it hit her hands an offensive player went right through the defensive player's back. This knocked the ball out of the defensive player's hands. The official doesn't call a foul, but she instead gives possession to the defensive team. Now the offensive team's head coach starts screaming and the official walks over to him and she says, "It's either a foul or the other team's ball." He says disgustedly, "Why don't you just call the foul then?" Her comment was, "Because I don't feel like calling a foul." Meanwhile, the defensive team's coach is screaming, "Call the foul! She can't go do that!" Now, I'm sure that there's people who can or will readily defend the officials decision, but in this example, the official by her own statement choose to ignore a clear foul and managed to get both head coaches upset, which in turn, the fans saw, and raised their ire. I really don't think that this is great officiating, but I know people will disagree. The chief argument seems to be, "Well, you can't call everything." Actually, you can call what you see and guess what? Quicker than you think, players and coaches will adjust their game to the understood rules.

But, this will never happen because it would decrease the number of highlight dunks on ESPN every night and some superstars would actually foul out of games on occasion. Instead, officiating at all levels is going to continue to follow the NBA's example and actual skills will continue to take a back seat to athleticism. Basketball has changed, and I just don't think that it's been all for the better.

[Helcat72]

I thought that the bad calls were disapportionately called in the last few minutres of the game where they became more crucial. That may be just the way it was or maybe not!

[whitetrashgriz]

On nearly almost every level (high school through the NBA) there seems to be a huge credibility gap with officials. IMNSHO, it's a function of what's happened starting in the NBA and has ultimately trickled down to all levels now. The NBA clearly made the decision that the rules of the game should be applied selectively over time. For example, watch an NBA game-how many times do you see an obvious travel not called? It's not several times a game, it's in the double digits. And when a travelling violation is actually called a large percentage of the players are incredulous because they don't even know that they're not supposed to be able to do that. "Let them play" became the mantra and the game evolved from one of finesse with a physical component to a physical game with a very limited amount of finesse.

And as a result of the "selective enforcement", I think fans behave worse towards the officials than they ever have before. Why? Because when we are raised in a culture of laws and rules, it's easier to understand a missed call, but much harder to understand an official simply ignoring an obvious violation of the rules. Just this last week I saw and heard a perfect example of this first hand that demonstrates how this permeates right down to the high school level. At an intra-city girls' game in Billings a shot went up and on the rebound a defender went up for the ball and as it hit her hands an offensive player went right through the defensive player's back. This knocked the ball out of the defensive player's hands. The official doesn't call a foul, but she instead gives possession to the defensive team. Now the offensive team's head coach starts screaming and the official walks over to him and she says, "It's either a foul or the other team's ball." He says disgustedly, "Why don't you just call the foul then?" Her comment was, "Because I don't feel like calling a foul." Meanwhile, the defensive team's coach is screaming, "Call the foul! She can't go do that!" Now, I'm sure that there's people who can or will readily defend the officials decision, but in this example, the official by her own statement choose to ignore a clear foul and managed to get both head coaches upset, which in turn, the fans saw, and raised their ire. I really don't think that this is great officiating, but I know people will disagree. The chief argument seems to be, "Well, you can't call everything." Actually, you can call what you see and guess what? Quicker than you think, players and coaches will adjust their game to the understood rules.

But, this will never happen because it would decrease the number of highlight dunks on ESPN every night and some superstars would actually foul out of games on occasion. Instead, officiating at all levels is going to continue to follow the NBA's example and actual skills will continue to take a back seat to athleticism. Basketball has changed, and I just don't think that it's been all for the better.

i agree with a lot of what you are saying. however, basketball like every other sport is evolving. it's not so much that the refs are choosing not to call fouls in my opinion. but i think the job gets harder and harder because guys truly are bigger, faster, and stronger. look at a game in the 50's and notice the size of the ten guys on the floor. now look at the size of the guys whn the cavs host the magic! this makes calling fouls that much more difficult. you truly could make a case for a foul to be called on nearly every possession. i don't think fans, coaches, or players would like this. the flow of the game would be horrible, and games would last four hours! i too get a little annoyed when i see guys charging the lane and throwing up a prayer, drawing contact, and going to the line. but how can you tell a guy who's so athletic not to use that. simple logic says that you have a better chance of scoring from 1 foot away or closer than you do shooting 15-18 footers. so that's how the game is being played, and i think that's how it'll always be played. which is why officiating is even getting tough in high school and middle school. i don't think officials are really thinking, "well...this is how it's called in the NBA so that's how i'm going to call this high school game"! but these high school kids are getting huge too. they are driving the lane with authority. they are dunking in the fifth grade. they are signing with colleges before they choose a igh school. that wasn't happening before. i think it would be short sighted to look at the evolution of sports as a whole, yet expect the calls to made the same way they were 20 plus years ago. doesn't mean i always like it, but i think it's how it's gonna be.

[Billings Cat]

On nearly almost every level (high school through the NBA) there seems to be a huge credibility gap with officials. IMNSHO, it's a function of what's happened starting in the NBA and has ultimately trickled down to all levels now. The NBA clearly made the decision that the rules of the game should be applied selectively over time. For example, watch an NBA game-how many times do you see an obvious travel not called? It's not several times a game, it's in the double digits. And when a travelling violation is actually called a large percentage of the players are incredulous because they don't even know that they're not supposed to be able to do that. "Let them play" became the mantra and the game evolved from one of finesse with a physical component to a physical game with a very limited amount of finesse.

And as a result of the "selective enforcement", I think fans behave worse towards the officials than they ever have before. Why? Because when we are raised in a culture of laws and rules, it's easier to understand a missed call, but much harder to understand an official simply ignoring an obvious violation of the rules. Just this last week I saw and heard a perfect example of this first hand that demonstrates how this permeates right down to the high school level. At an intra-city girls' game in Billings a shot went up and on the rebound a defender went up for the ball and as it hit her hands an offensive player went right through the defensive player's back. This knocked the ball out of the defensive player's hands. The official doesn't call a foul, but she instead gives possession to the defensive team. Now the offensive team's head coach starts screaming and the official walks over to him and she says, "It's either a foul or the other team's ball." He says disgustedly, "Why don't you just call the foul then?" Her comment was, "Because I don't feel like calling a foul." Meanwhile, the defensive team's coach is screaming, "Call the foul! She can't go do that!" Now, I'm sure that there's people who can or will readily defend the officials decision, but in this example, the official by her own statement choose to ignore a clear foul and managed to get both head coaches upset, which in turn, the fans saw, and raised their ire. I really don't think that this is great officiating, but I know people will disagree. The chief argument seems to be, "Well, you can't call everything." Actually, you can call what you see and guess what? Quicker than you think, players and coaches will adjust their game to the understood rules.

But, this will never happen because it would decrease the number of highlight dunks on ESPN every night and some superstars would actually foul out of games on occasion. Instead, officiating at all levels is going to continue to follow the NBA's example and actual skills will continue to take a back seat to athleticism. Basketball has changed, and I just don't think that it's been all for the better.

i agree with a lot of what you are saying. however, basketball like every other sport is evolving. it's not so much that the refs are choosing not to call fouls in my opinion. but i think the job gets harder and harder because guys truly are bigger, faster, and stronger. look at a game in the 50's and notice the size of the ten guys on the floor. now look at the size of the guys whn the cavs host the magic! this makes calling fouls that much more difficult. you truly could make a case for a foul to be called on nearly every possession. i don't think fans, coaches, or players would like this. the flow of the game would be horrible, and games would last four hours! i too get a little annoyed when i see guys charging the lane and throwing up a prayer, drawing contact, and going to the line. but how can you tell a guy who's so athletic not to use that. simple logic says that you have a better chance of scoring from 1 foot away or closer than you do shooting 15-18 footers. so that's how the game is being played, and i think that's how it'll always be played. which is why officiating is even getting tough in high school and middle school. i don't think officials are really thinking, "well...this is how it's called in the NBA so that's how i'm going to call this high school game"! but these high school kids are getting huge too. they are driving the lane with authority. they are dunking in the fifth grade. they are signing with colleges before they choose a igh school. that wasn't happening before. i think it would be short sighted to look at the evolution of sports as a whole, yet expect the calls to made the same way they were 20 plus years ago. doesn't mean i always like it, but i think it's how it's gonna be.

I see your point about players being bigger, faster, stronger, but that has very little to do with the selective enforcement of travels, carries, double dribbles, etc. The direction David Stern gave officials in the NBA to me has done more harm to the game than any single person in the history of any sport with the possible exception of Don King and boxing. And I just don't think you can dismiss the influence that professional sports has on the lower levels from players, to coaches, to officials. Stern has by consciously marketing individual players instead of teams to the public, by being the number one advocate for athleticism over skills, and pushing the game on an international scale has made a lot of people very rich. But I think in the long run, he's also sealed the doom for the goose that lays the golden egg in the United States.

This is very unscientific, but think about how many hard core NBA fans there were 10 years ago compared to now. Then compare it to 20 years ago. From my vantage point, this number has declined significantly. Another very unscientific measurement would be the number of sports fans now who simple detest and despise the NBA compared to 10 and 20 years ago. Talk to some of your average sports fans and it's amazing the level of disdain for the NBA. A ton are quick to point out some sentiment such as, "I like college okay, but I hate the NBA." I hear that all the time when I talk NBA basketball with people. Also consider this, what percentage of season ticket holders from 20 years ago were corporations compared to now? And of this group today, if these "fans" had to buy the tickets themselves and it wasn't on the corporation's dime, how many do you think would buy season tickets for themselves? I think to some degree this corporation reliance has happened in all sports, but feel that it's much more significant percentage in the NBA where when I've gone to games nearly ever year and the lower level is usually half full at game time and only two-thirds full at it's peak. Again, there's a lot of factors that have come into play and the officiating isn't the disease, it's a symptom, but I think professional basketball has seen it's high point and will continue to erode in terms of popularity within the U.S. They just don't know it yet.

[grizzh8r]

In all honesty, from what I had seen early on in the season and in the first half of conference play, the officiating had been decent - in fact, somewhat respectable. But last weekend, the refs ruined that notion with one bad performance followed up by a terrible one.

Just when I thought BSC officiating had turned the corner...

I should know better.

[Helcat72]

If one contends that a foul could be called on about evey play and that officials are now picking and choosing which fouls to call....then it lends to the opportunity for officials to favor one team, player, athletic move, or coach without even consciously doing it! If the player looks good making the move...then he must have been fouled! Say....a move by Damian Lillard vs one by Will Bynum. Just like the NBA!

[GOKATS]

If one contends that a foul could be called on about evey play and that officials are now picking and choosing which fouls to call....then it lends to the opportunity for officials to favor one team, player, athletic move, or coach without even consciously doing it! If the player looks good making the move...then he must have been fouled! Say....a move by Damian Lillard vs one by Will Bynum. Just like the NBA!

Unfortunately there's too much truth in your post. The real obvious ones are when the whistle blows before the foul(?) occurs. Too often any more I see some officials 'anticipating' the infraction.

[Helcat72]

If one contends that a foul could be called on about evey play and that officials are now picking and choosing which fouls to call....then it lends to the opportunity for officials to favor one team, player, athletic move, or coach without even consciously doing it! If the player looks good making the move...then he must have been fouled! Say....a move by Damian Lillard vs one by Will Bynum. Just like the NBA!

Unfortunately there's too much truth in your post. The real obvious ones are when the whistle blows before the foul(?) occurs. Too often any more I see some officials 'anticipating' the infraction.

We saw that a lot against Weber!