Has the quality of referees declined? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Has the quality of referees declined?

msf22b said:
OT: thinking of that and the increased physicality...
In this game at least...Paige seemed to avoid the extremes
that Caitlin seems to endure every game.
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If you look at CC's game going back to college you will see how often she initiates contact in order to draw fouls. Nothing wrong with that and more credit to her you can say because if you can do it successfully and get away with it, great. Transforming that, however, into the W where so much more contact is permitted before a foul is called, it is pretty easy to see why she has taken some hard knocks.
 
topogigio said:
In general, WCBB and WNBA officials are horrendous. There are a few good ones, but they are the exception. I know I will get a lot of heat for the following, but here I go; the women officials are the worst!
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Couldn't agree more. "Women officials are the worst"

You will not get any heat from me.

Officials are bad in every sport, but College women's basketball is the worst... That call on Uconn 2 years ago in the final four against Iowa took the cake.

It almost makes you think that maybe just maybe they Wanted and Needed C.Clark in the finals...So they screwed Uconn to get what they wanted...

I hate South Carolina and their coach but I have to admit, I rooted for Clark and Iowa to lose after that rip off job...Yep I was happy when Clark and Iowa were humiliated.

But that is just me.
 
BobbyJ said:
Agreed. Any clapping at, gesturing toward, or magic words will usually get an immediate T.
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Regarding the level of officiating in the W, I think Paige has seen the difference about the way goes are called in the NCAA and in the W. She knew exactly what she was doing and wanted to make a point. She warranted a T but at same time let it be known that there are some no-calls that are unforgivable and something needs to be done. Maybe somebody with the power to make decisions will pay attention.
 
Refs are getting better, no doubt. The first WCBB game i attended was in the early 70's at NIU. There were less than 20 spectators including the refs. I include the refs in the spectators in attendance because their knowledge of the game was no greater than those of us watching the game. Yes, over the next 50 years the officiating has gotten better. It's not unusual to watch some games realizing later that we didn't pull out one hair on our heads because of bad calls.
We watch youth WBB games we see plenty of mistakes. We watch girls HS BB games the players make errors. We watch WCBB and the players make errors. We watch WNBA games, and the player make mistakes. Are we foolish enough to believe that the refs at all levels won't make errors officiating, we know better. Every game is different, some games the refs seem to be on vacation, some we hardly notice them. WBB play is improving at all levels, while the officiating is also improving at all levels. The WBB scene in general is exploding, more players = more games, more games more refs, new refs mean more mistakes. We learn thru experience and by making mistakes. Players, coaches, refs and fans.
 
WiseWillie said:
If you look at CC's game going back to college you will see how often she initiates contact in order to draw fouls. Nothing wrong with that and more credit to her you can say because if you can do it successfully and get away with it, great. Transforming that, however, into the W where so much more contact is permitted before a foul is called, it is pretty easy to see why she has taken some hard knocks.
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This seems sort of right to me, but not entirely fair. As a freshman, Caitlin constantly hunted fouls on drives. But she had a much fuller game than that, and Lisa Bluder told her to cut out the antics where she ends up on the floor gesturing at the officials after every drive. Lots of kids, including Paige, would end up on the floor after a drive. Latson is another one. I used to joke that if you held practices on outdoor courts that behavior would end.

The thing is, Caitlin has the full range of skills Paige has and can drive to the rim or pull up in the midrange just as well. What you didn’t see from either of them in college was the sort of play Caitlin tried against Sheldon the other day, to back the defender down from the top of the key, bucking her shoulder into Jacy’s chest repeatedly. That wasn’t Caitlin’s game at Iowa. Plus it would probably draw a whistle right away. But in the W this has become a staple in her arsenal.

What I’m getting at is that the W has changed Caitlin’s game a bit. Lots of the old virtues are still there. But the roughhouse style is also there. I doubt we’ll see the same thing from Paige. She’ll change the W before she lets it change her. And either the refs and the league will recognize what she’s doing and go along, or they won’t.
 
Meh. I am not at all perturbed by the tech called on Paige. In fact, in retrospect, I think it could turn out to be a very good thing for both Paige and the Wings going forward.

To clarify, I think the refs at the game - and any refs evaluating league games afterwards - probably took away some very favorable impressions as to how Paige handled herself immediately after the tech, and for the rest of the game. Of course Paige seemed surprised, and even grinned after it occurred, but that was the extent of her reaction. Very classy from a rookie superstar.

And kudos to Kolcanes for bringing her out of the game temporarily as well. Good optics all around on that decision and, I suspect, appreciated by the refs as well.

I wonder, if during the short time she was on the bench, she stole a glance over to where Geno and Kathy were sitting, or up to the stands where her UConn teammates were watching.....
 
BobbyJ said:
Agreed. Any clapping at, gesturing toward, or magic words will usually get an immediate T.
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When I was in school, the lore was that you could get away with some mouthing off, but never while looking at the official. I dunno how true that was/is, but Paige was looking at the ref when she got teed up. Contrast that with the Sun, who were not-so-affectionately called the “Connecticut And-Ones” by other teams because they shouted “and one!” after just about every made shot and didn’t seem to get any T’s because of it.
 
topogigio said:
In general, WCBB and WNBA officials are horrendous. There are a few good ones, but they are the exception. I know I will get a lot of heat for the following, but here I go; the women officials are the worst!
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I've been saying the same thing for years. The amount of physical contact they allow in WCBB is inexplicable on its surface. From the eye test, if the same officiating took place in MCBB there would be a fight every game. I have felt for years that the women are at risk when they play more so than the men due to the lack of strong officiating. What you are seeing now in the WNBA is condonation of physical harm from an administrative position.
 
YKCornelius said:
Meh. I am not at all perturbed by the tech called on Paige. In fact, in retrospect, I think it could turn out to be a very good thing for both Paige and the Wings going forward.

To clarify, I think the refs at the game - and any refs evaluating league games afterwards - probably took away some very favorable impressions as to how Paige handled herself immediately after the tech, and for the rest of the game. Of course Paige seemed surprised, and even grinned after it occurred, but that was the extent of her reaction. Very classy from a rookie superstar.

And kudos to Kolcanes for bringing her out of the game temporarily as well. Good optics all around on that decision and, I suspect, appreciated by the refs as well.

I wonder, if during the short time she was on the bench, she stole a glance over to where Geno and Kathy were sitting, or up to the stands where her UConn teammates were watching.....
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Different perspective here. The same thing Paige did happens all the time. Let's set the rookie straight was what that was in my book.
 
Somehow, 30 (THIRTY) fouls called in the first half of today's Washington-Dallas game (though, no bias: 15 for each team...).
 
Bigboote said:
I dunno that it's declined, but the players have improved. So the quality of the officiating hasn't kept up with the quality of the players. Things are happening faster, and most of the officials can't keep up with it.

If the NCAA or the WNBA want the officials to improve they need to pay them better. Ideally, pay each official more per game and increase the number of officials so that each one doesn't need to travel so much. Someone like Maj Forsberg obviously enjoys her job, but she has a full slate of NCAA games, a full slate of WNBA games, plus she does a lot of FIBA games. That's gotta take a toll. If she earned more per game, maybe she could take a month off now or then.

Reducing the number of games could also allow for more training. I'm not one to advocate that normally, butI think it would improve things immensely if the officials had a week or two of ref school before the NCAA and WNBA seasons.
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That article that was posted at some point in the last year agrees that women's refs are perhaps underpaid, but it varies a lot by who the ref is. The numbers suggested were not all that bad for the higher level refs (in the abstract) although not anywhere near as good as men's refs, and arguable as to worth it given the amount of work required to be considered good enough to earn it. I suspect Maj has a very nice income. Not even considering FIBA, I do not understand how she could possibly be fresh everyday with the volume of work she does in the NCAA.

Going back to that article, the lack of (consistent) supervision, the poor communication of superiors and the lack of a coordinated training system are all problems.

In my view the W (where I have only seen 2 games, both mystifying on the refereeing side this season) is infinitely worse than the NCAA. I actually think most NCAA refs - while there always is room for improvement - are probably the best available.
 
60 fouls (including OT) in Washington-Dallas game vs 63 fouls called in total in the Indiana-LV AND the Atlanta-Chicago games.
Dallas played 8 players and had 2 players foul out, with 2 others with 5 fouls. Washington played 10, no one fouled out, but 3 players had 5 fouls. Just what the fans came to see...
 
It's like being asked to discern shades of gray in a dark room.
 
BBallF said:
It's also a technical rule violation call you usually don't see in the last seconds of a national semifinal.
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It wasn’t that technical. Aaliyah effectively gave Gabby Marshall a hipcheck as she was going by. It couldn’t have been ignored. We all thought it was a fussy call because the replays the network initially showed were from an angle that didn’t really show it clearly.
 
Bone Dog said:
It wasn’t that technical. Aaliyah effectively gave Gabby Marshall a hipcheck as she was going by. It couldn’t have been ignored. We all thought it was a fussy call because the replays the network initially showed were from an angle that didn’t really show it clearly.
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I'm not denying it was a foul. I question the timing when so many other similar violations were not called. In any event, I don't think that call was emblematic of the current poor quality of the officials. I do think that there is a tendency to call a foul like that which is so overt and not call a body check on a layup or jump shot.
 
To address the original question, my view is - maybe.

When I sat my referees' written exam in the mid 70s (I retired from playing, coaching, and refereeing in the late 80s) the rule book (this was FIBA rules) was quite a slim volume and we still regarded basketball as a non-contact sport.

Putting aside the changes that allow three step and more lay-ups, don't punish double dribble, and so on, it appears that the rules are much more complex than they were then. For example, we only had to deal with normal fouls, shooting fouls, technical fouls, intentional fouls, and disqualifying fouls, not the plethora of variations I see now. And what on earth is meant by the defence for dirty play: "It was a basketball play"? Dirty play is dirty play and should be punished! Having said that , two players going for a loose ball can have quite violent contact without it being a foul.

If a player driving to the rim dropped their shoulder into a defender they got called for a charge, rather than the foul being called on the defender. And so on.

To my mind too much contact is allowed nowadays, leading to the the fiasco we're currently seeing in the WNBA, and I'm not just talking about the victim who is getting all the publicity.

Add to this the number of referees needed to cover all levels of the sport and it stands to reason, to me at least, that the standard will be reduced. However the best of the best are the ones who should be officiating the D1 competitions at the college level. In rugby union, our national sport, referees at the highest level are assessed by a panel and won't be assigned games if their performance doesn't meet standards. I used to chuckle at tournaments - the referees would sit together and would be watching the referees as much as the basketball. :cool:

Oh, and we were taught that you concentrated your vision to particular areas. With two referees the lead referee concentrated on the shoulders down, and we were taught not to lift our heads to follow the ball, while the trail referee concentrated on the waist up. Given the number of missed calls I wonder if today's referees have similar responsibilities? Perhaps someone with more recent experience can elucidate.

On the specific example quoted above, Lili did commit a foul - and I'm an ardent UConn supporter. Similarly, Carol's much-vaunted winning shot at the end of the match a couple of years ago should have been disallowed as she pushed the defender off with her left arm. Two different incidents with two different results. Let the abuse commence!

Referees will never be perfect, but they should be consistent.

Allow me to tell a story against myself: I was the lead referee, standing behind the baseline under the basket. A defender swung her arm, missed the ball, and hit a player on the other team, right in front of me. I blew my whistle, raised my fist to signal the foul, and my mind went completely blank. The player who committed the foul looked at me, saw my brain freeze, put her hand up and said quietly "it was me." I made a point of thanking her as we walked off at half time!
 
WiseWillie said:
Regarding the level of officiating in the W, I think Paige has seen the difference about the way goes are called in the NCAA and in the W. She knew exactly what she was doing and wanted to make a point. She warranted a T but at same time let it be known that there are some no-calls that are unforgivable and something needs to be done. Maybe somebody with the power to make decisions will pay attention.
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How do you know what Paige wanted? Really, did she tell you? I'm not sure the clapping was about the no-call and it was after Paige turned to run down court and certainly not in the ref's face. Plus, it didn't look like much of a foul to me, certainly not a hard foul. Her "you got to be kidding me" reaction is not consistent with a deliberate T.
 
Bone Dog said:
It wasn’t that technical. Aaliyah effectively gave Gabby Marshall a hipcheck as she was going by. It couldn’t have been ignored. We all thought it was a fussy call because the replays the network initially showed were from an angle that didn’t really show it clearly.
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Well, the lesson to be learned is not about refs or hip checks. It's put the game away so that 1 call cannot change the outcome. If that can't be done, then whatever happens...
 
There was a lengthy article published in the NYTimes (by the Athletic) about the poor state of officiating in women's college basketball.

Here's the headline; I can't get the link to upload or copy. It was published March 20, 2025.

At a ‘crisis moment,’ women’s college basketball officiating needs a way forward​

Once you read it, you will no longer be surprised at the poor officiating, but you will likely be angrier.
 
Skeets said:
How do you know what Paige wanted? Really, did she tell you? I'm not sure the clapping was about the no-call and it was after Paige turned to run down court and certainly not in the ref's face. Plus, it didn't look like much of a foul to me, certainly not a hard foul. Her "you got to be kidding me" reaction is not consistent with a deliberate T.
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OK, I can accept your questioning, but likewise how do you know what her clapping was about or not about? Did she whisper it to you on the sidelines? And were you at the game within 10 feet to see the foul? There are things like facts and there are things like opinions and conjectures. Its worthwhile to differentiate between the two and best to leave it at that.
 
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