Jay Bilas was talking about it quite a bit last week. Officiating is called into question in many collegiate games which got me to thinking about what the problem is and how to fix it. I think there needs to be a reform in college basketball officiating.
First and foremost, let me make a point clear that is often misunderstood. In college basketball, officials are regional and not assigned/employed by a single conference as they are in college football. A guy working a Charlotte game one night may be in Davidson the next night and Chapel Hill the next weekend. This is why an official that was under suspension by the ACC a couple of years ago after a game at FSU was working in Halton a few nights later.
[size=1em]In basketball more so than most sports, officials are a crew, a team rather than individuals. Also, i[/size][size=small]f a guy is asked to work a Charlotte game the same night that he is asked to work a game in Durham, he will probably take the job in Durham. It is my assumption that they pay better, not to mention better exposure to get opportunities at post season jobs.[/size]
[size=1em]ACC officiating seems better some nights, in my opinion, because they get to pick their whole crew. [/size][size=small]This leads me to believe that we are getting ACC leftovers. [/size][size=small]It’s the same guys we are getting, but the crew as a team of officials is not necessarily the same. I think the best thing that could happen is that officials are no longer employed/scheduled as individuals but rather as teams. I don’t know how many times I have seen in Halton this year where two guys look at each other trying to figure out who touched the ball last. They are often making calls out of place. It shows me that the guys on our home court aren’t used to working together. I think they need to stay regional rather than conference affiliated to keep good crews available to other regional conferences.[/size]
[size=small]I think this could help a lot. I have thought about them being conference affiliated or governed by the NCAA rather than conference regulators, but I don’t know that will help anything. If anything, the NCAA would start putting the “best” crews in high profile games.[/size]
[size=small]Thoughts? Are there any assumptions I made that are incorrect?[/size]
[size=small]The other issue is consistency through a game. I have no clue what to do with that. Maybe this would help that too. It’s fine if you are going to allow more contact, but be consistent on both sides of the court and through the entire game. You can’t start calling touch fouls all of the sudden in the 2nd half. I think that has been a frustration of many A10 teams this year.[/size]
And this brings me back to Bonnie. Olean is in the middle of nowhere. They are not going to get a good official from Georgia to come up there and ref the game. The a10 is going to find people who are willing to go to Olean (ie locals).
To be totally honest, I have felt like our officials really haven’t been that bad at all, with the exception of GW. This opinion may be of the dissent, but we blame officiating way too much. Officials miss calls every now and again. If you assign officials to conferences based on ability level, I’d hate to be thinking of what we’d get next year in C-USA.
[quote=“Tintin, post:2, topic:27529”]And this brings me back to Bonnie. Olean is in the middle of nowhere. They are not going to get a good official from Georgia to come up there and ref the game. The a10 is going to find people who are willing to go to Olean (ie locals).[/quote]St. Bonnie is going to get guys that typically work NE games. Same guys probably working Syracuse games and such. Though it is still hard to convince guys to go out there I’m sure.
[quote=“ImfromClayton, post:3, topic:27529”]To be totally honest, I have felt like our officials really haven’t been that bad at all, with the exception of GW. This opinion may be of the dissent, but we blame officiating way too much. Officials miss calls every now and again. If you assign officials to conferences based on ability level, I’d hate to be thinking of what we’d get next year in C-USA.[/quote]I don’t think they should be assigned to conferences.
I don’t know how you accomplish it, but I’d like to see more done to reduce the home court advantage. I would suppose the conferences don’t mind it because it helps the home fans be happier. But it’s crazy to me how different home and road games are, and how some teams (like SLU or Dayton) seem to have such stronger home court advantages than other teams.
I’d love to see them clean up the physical play both on the perimeter and under the basket. I know this would probably be to the Niners’ detriment lately, aside from playing VCU, but I’d much rather see guys forced to play without so much contact. It allows teams to use physicality to take away the grace, speed, and quickness of basketball. Teams would score more and there’d be less confusion about what is a foul and what isn’t. There’d also be less benefit to bulking up like football players, so guys could better maintain their quickness and agility without having to worry about getting manhandled down low. Smaller players would be less likely to get bumped off the ball and there’d be fewer turnovers in general (because many of them happen due to guys getting bumped with no foul call), so the game would be less disjointed. Folks worry about there being too many foul calls, but that would just happen while teams adjust. If the Niners get called for reach-ins on every drive, then they’re eventually going to stop reaching in so that key guys don’t foul out.
These two things would help a lot of the confusion about what is and what isn’t a foul for the fans. Right now, if you bang someone underneath the basket, as long as it isn’t Cody Ellis or someone else willing to try to flop, there’s no foul call, unless you bang the guy too hard. But if you bang someone in the same way on the perimeter, it’s a foul, unless it’s a road game, then it might not be a foul depending on which team did it. Tough to keep up with as a fan, and I’m sure as a player too.
I agree with a couple of other exceptions. VCU was a fistfight and the refs didn’t call the game correctly IMO. We still should have won, not blaming the refs but just saying they weren’t good. St Louis, not sure it would have mattered, but that flopping shit is awful needs to be stopped.
When one official looks at another official without making a call it is a message to the other official he didn’t see the play or the entire play, such as a tip or deflection. If the other official saw the play he should make the call. Normally see this when the ball is out of bounds. Angle and position are everything in officiating. It is very difficult to see everything, thats why they added a 3rd official.
We’ve had some good officials this year but some have been horrible. I don’t care how they call it if they are consistent from one end to the other. Players usually adjust.
[quote=“The White Samurai, post:8, topic:27529”]Nothing aggravates me more than when there’s a collision in the paint and the refs swallow their whistles.
It’s either a block or a charge. Don’t be afraid to call it.
We need an extra foul for flopping, it’s disgusting to see it used as a legitimate strategy.
Also… post players dragging their pivot foot.[/quote]
I"d go one step further and require mandatory testicle removal to habitual floppers. There’s no way that blue haired fairy from SLU should be allowed to reproduce later in life.
[quote=“shaqots, post:9, topic:27529”][quote=“The White Samurai, post:8, topic:27529”]Nothing aggravates me more than when there’s a collision in the paint and the refs swallow their whistles.
It’s either a block or a charge. Don’t be afraid to call it.
We need an extra foul for flopping, it’s disgusting to see it used as a legitimate strategy.
Also… post players dragging their pivot foot.[/quote]
I"d go one step further and require mandatory testicle removal to habitual floppers. There’s no way that blue haired fairy from SLU should be allowed to reproduce later in life.[/quote] Can’t remove something missing to begin with.