Referees: would this help?

[Blakeon18]

A knowledgable basketball soul was sitting about 10 rows up in a recent game...non-UConn.
Afterwards she said that her view of the court probably was better in some situations than the positions
of the refs down on the court. She claimed to see things that should/should not have been called that occasionally differed from the calls on the court.
She wondered: put one of the 3 refs at center court up a few rows. Work out the logistics of how to
communicate with the 2 refs on the floor. She felt with some trial runs in pre-season games it might benefit
the quality of the decisions. Make any sense?

My little suggestion to add to the concept: Some refs ....good ones...at some point may be too old to run the floor
in an appropriate way. This new placement of these good refs might extend their officiating careers...and improve the overall quality of the game.

Any wisdom on this...especially from folks who have actually reffed?

 

[Kmoney]

Any idea that would improve women's referee performance is a good idea. Having a ref sitting in the stands among the fans is a recipe for disaster. I used to think it was the low pay that caused such poor reffing, but I see a lot better refs in the high school games I go to.

I think the simplest solution is require men's and women's refs to crossover for a certain amount of games. The men's game will not put up with these poor officials just simply because of the billions of dollars involved. This will quickly weed out most of the poor officials in the women's game. Actually, I think just the threat of the refs crossing over will cause action to be taken.

 

[VAUConnFan]

The team that plays the best on any given night will win all but a handful of games regardless of how a game is called. UConn with its 10 national championships and its gloriously history - I , for one, cannot think of a contest that was pointedly decided by officiating.
My opinion: Center court up a few rows is too far from the action.

WCBB would do well to adopt the NBA model where potential referees are identified and trained through a development program of constant evaluation and training that includes the D league the summer leagues. There was a very interesting basketball documentary, Summer Dreams, that features Lauren Holtkamp's quest toward a permanent position as an NBA official, a quest that would be achieved a year after the documentary was filmed, after spending the better part of seven years in the development program; A program, ironically, run by Kristi Tolliver's father.
The problems are likely top come from the fact that college officiating is a part time job. Most officials have 9 to 5's that would preclude them from being able to devote more hours to the intense development demanded of NBA officials.

Bottom line: it does not matter where an official is on the court, some calls are going to get missed.

 

[UcMiami]

The issue with basketball is that it is played at speed and in constant motion and whistles are never 'overturned' (except when the ref admits that the whistle was inadvertent.) There is no time for officials to 'communicate' before blowing a whistle and each ref is pretty much autonomous. The only consultations occur on who touched a ball last on an out of bounds, when two refs make different calls on the same play, or when determining whether a foul was flagrant. And 'replays' are used only in very restricted ways during stoppages (clock, three point/two point, flagrant foul, possession at the end of games.) I think any changes to the speed of calls or the non-mutability of calls would be worse than what is happening now, with little chance of actually improving the end result.

Every fan base complains about bad calls and every game includes some bad calls or questionable judgement calls, but few games are actually decided by those calls, and many of the questioned calls, even after video review, are clear cut. We can all point to games where the refs were 'terrible' but not that many of them, and in many of those cases the teams themselves bear equal responsibility. All fans would love perfection, but the situation is really not as dire as all fans believe.

NB - there have been very few games where officials have made actual errors in enforcing the rules of the game, usually involved in the coordination of and running of the clock. If you look at the controversies in the NFL this past year, this happens at the highest levels of professional sport and with greater frequency.

 

[HuskyBandDad]

Any idea that would improve women's referee performance is a good idea. Having a ref sitting in the stands among the fans is a recipe for disaster. I used to think it was the low pay that caused such poor reffing, but I see a lot better refs in the high school games I go to.

I think the simplest solution is require men's and women's refs to crossover for a certain amount of games. The men's game will not put up with these poor officials just simply because of the billions of dollars involved. This will quickly weed out most of the poor officials in the women's game. Actually, I think just the threat of the refs crossing over will cause action to be taken.

I am assuming you do not watch too many men's games ? I watch all the men's games and most of the women's games. The officiating of men's games some nights is as bad as it can get. And not just one sided. Bad calls both ways.

 

[uconnfan68]

A knowledgable basketball soul was sitting about 10 rows up in a recent game...non-UConn.
Afterwards she said that her view of the court probably was better in some situations than the positions
of the refs down on the court. She claimed to see things that should/should not have been called that occasionally differed from the calls on the court.
She wondered: put one of the 3 refs at center court up a few rows. Work out the logistics of how to
communicate with the 2 refs on the floor. She felt with some trial runs in pre-season games it might benefit
the quality of the decisions. Make any sense?

My little suggestion to add to the concept: Some refs ....good ones...at some point may be too old to run the floor
in an appropriate way. This new placement of these good refs might extend their officiating careers...and improve the overall quality of the game.

Any wisdom on this...especially from folks who have actually reffed?

Only trained to ref very briefly, but I'm certain the view from the cheap seats is best. No one up there is ever wrong. ;^)

 

[ThisJustIn]

I love this topic (or I wouldn't have written lots on it) and every time it comes up I point to money...and time.

It takes TIME to become a good official - and we're talking years -- and very few are able/willing to put the time in for carp pay. Yes, you get good $$ when you reach top conferences, but how many folks have the stamina to get there? And then, there's the life - all that traveling? Given the choice with getting paid peanuts to ref or peanuts to coach a high school team, which would you choose?

WCBB can't adopt the NBA model (and NBA refs never make mistakes and haven't been lambasted recently in major newspapers) because there's no money. Conferences have to invest in training folks - and that's on the conference head.

There are camps and effective trainings (WCBB's D league is Div. II, III and then mid-majors) by some Officials Coordinators but, of course, once you get a good'un trained up, they get poached by the upper levels.

I could go on and on - and have. If you're interested, they're old, but I think they're still on point, the articles I wrote for Women's Basketball Magazine are here: https://fraser61.wordpress.com/officiating/

 

[ctdad]

Every fan base complains about bad calls and every game includes some bad calls or questionable judgement calls, but few games are actually decided by those calls, and many of the questioned calls, even after video review, are clear cut. We can all point to games where the refs were 'terrible' but not that many of them, and in many of those cases the teams themselves bear equal responsibility. All fans would love perfection, but the situation is really not as dire as all fans believe.

NB - there have been very few games where officials have made actual errors in enforcing the rules of the game, usually involved in the coordination of and running of the clock. If you look at the controversies in the NFL this past year, this happens at the highest levels of professional sport and with greater frequency.

I agree 100%. People also tend to totally overlook when they are the beneficiary of a bad call.

My older boy was a high school wrestler. You would constantly hear fans complain about this or that call cost a kid the match. I saw kids complain about it too. I told my son that as soon as you wrestle a perfect match and lose on a bad call (i.e., you made no mistakes), then you can complain about the ref. I also told him that at some point you are going to lose on a bad call and you are also going to win on one as well. It happened a couple of times both ways over his career, including in some very big spots. His junior year, in the 3rd place match at regional (winner to move on to the next level), he won a match in double overtime over a state ranked kid on a controversial call. The very next week, in an elimination match at the sectional, he lost in double overtime on another controversial call, ending his season.

If you think the officiating was bad, pick up a whistle and show what you can do.