Let's talk about the officials
There has been plenty of talk about the officials lately and with the playoffs upon us there is sure to be more to come. We’ve heard things like there are not enough fouls called, there are too many fouls called, others have said the officials control the game too much and yet others think they don’t control it enough. Some have suggested the officials don’t care and others think that there are too many technicals called. With such a wide range of complaints one could just assume players are venting their frustrations as to what they think has been unjustly done to them while playing. As players and paying customers you have the right to complain about the officiating. And it is understood that players aren’t always going to be happy with the official’s calls and sometimes officials do get plays wrong. Be upset with a call, a no call or a technical you feel is unwarranted. That’s just part of the game. Players, coaches and fans react to plays that go against them or their team. Again this is understandable and a part of the game. What isn’t justified is for players or fans to say that the officials working UH games are not qualified. How can the average fan or player say whether an official is qualified or not? Does playing high school, college or pro basketball make you an officiating expert? What about being a fan and watching your favorite team from the NCAA or NBA? How can someone who’s never been to an officiating camp, clinic or seminar know what an official is doing right or wrong? How do you know what level of training an official has or what level of basketball they get paid to work? The fact is there are officials working games at UH that have years of experience working high school, junior college, NAIA, D-III, D-II, D-I and even Professional basketball. So how can you tell them they are not qualified. There are officials who spend thousands of dollars a summer going to various camps learning how to officiate from the best officials and assignors in the world. So is it that the officials of UH aren’t qualified or they don’t give you the calls you think they should? That’s not to say officials don’t make mistakes or want plays or situations back. It happens to the best officials in the world. Joey Crawford and Tim Donaughy both messed up in the NBA. Jim Burr, Steve Wilmar and Ed Hightower have all made mistakes at the NCAA level. They are the best in the world and they don’t always get it right, but they try to and they learn from their mistakes. So to expect the officials at UH to be perfect is a great wish, but it will never happen. But mishandling a situation or getting a play wrong doesn’t make them unqualified. Some officials are better than others, just as some players are better than others. Some officials may have more experience or training that makes them more qualified but that doesn’t mean the others are unqualified. So when the officials make a bad call or a call that goes against you, you can say it was a bad call and you can plead your case. But know that call was bad either because the official missed the play, or it was actually the right call and you just didn’t like it because it went against you. It was not because the official is not qualified to be working a game at UH. If you don’t think that the officials are qualified to be working your games perhaps you should ask them what they’ve done for training, how long they’ve been officiating and at what levels they have officiated. You might be surprised to find out that you have some very qualified officials working your game.
Replies to This Post
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Permalink Reply by Steve Schmidt on -
The only complaint I have is that you didn't use paragraphs in that post and I just puked on myself because I'm so dizzy. ;)
All joking aside...
I think the only thing I look for is consistency with technicals and ejections. For example, tonight, I heard a player say F''***** M****, J****S C****T, and he just got a look from the same ref who teed one of our players up for saying, "WOW", 2 weeks ago.
Consistency..., that's all.
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Permalink Reply by Dan Davis on -
Most of refs are pretty good overall. Of course they make mistakes as they will because that is what humans do. There might be one or two of the refs thought that just plain out dont give a damn and the first team to start complaining about calls start getting even more sad calls against them. Then it starts to turn ugly and part of it is because there is a lack of consistency out there. Yes you guys get paid to ref the game. But do you get fined for making bad calls? Do you ever get penalized for a bad call? I highly dought that this is any of the UH's refs full time jobs, so its not going to matter to them to do it right, because there is no consequences for there calls.
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Permalink Reply by Jake Valtierra on -
exactly my point, the refs don't care, they just get paid and they're gone, I mean they won't even look at you at the end of a game, I think ref's should be evaluated frequently and let go if not performing up to par. my team is extremely physical and it's really not fair for us to get beat up and not be able to beat back, so to speak.
we get touch fouls called on us and are mauled on the other end!
i would love to hear from Alan or Paul or anyone else who does scoreboard or stats concerning this issue, they're right there and can see the lopsidedness.
now i wouldn't say we've lost a game because of a bad call, but multiple calls throughout an entire game, I think our opponents are shooting something like 10-20 more free throws than us a game.
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Permalink Reply by James Veres on -
"I think our opponents are shooting something like 10-20 more free throws than us a game." How much are you willing to back up the things you say with facts? Ok let me help you. Let's look at the free throws per game by your team and your opponents. YBJ 11- Rainbow Warriors 14, Moonwah 15- RW 15, Warriors 8- RW 17, Wolfpack 13- RW 16, Mavs 22- RW 9, Buffs 24, RW 10, LLUA 20- RW 8, Crew 26- RW 17. So that's a total of 139 freethrows for your opponents and 106 for your team. A difference of 33 freethrows over 8 games meaning an avergave difference of just over 4 per game. 4 is a long way from 20! Now let's look at some of the games where the free throws were lopsided. I saw two of these games in person, the Mavs game and the Crew game. In both games your team intentional fouled to send the opponent to the freethrow line in the last two minutes. I did the stats for the Crew game so let's use that game as the example. In that game your teams last 6 team fouls were intentional. That gave the team 8 freethrows at the end of the game in which the free throw totals were 26-17 and the foul totals were 20-14. Take away those last 6 fouls and the freethrows would have been 18-17 and the fouls 14-14, that looks pretty even to me! But you must be right when you say the officials are unfairly calling the fouls against your team because the facts clearly show that here.
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Permalink Reply by Jake Valtierra on
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I get it, you're one of the officials! You're garbage too! If you have such a good memory tell me why my 3-pointer with like 5 seconds left didn't get counted, u didn't count it why? It's not in the stats either but you can ask anyone who was there what happened and they say the same as me. So you really have no credibility. As for the fouls how many did they give us at the end of the game when the game was out of reach, suddenly we start getting calls when it's too late? Since you have a photographic memory you should be able to explain this. Yes we did foul intentionally but we got just as many calls at the end, if it would've been called that way all along we would've never been in that situation, and those for all the other games we lost.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Schmidt on
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James in my opionion is the best ref out there. I may not agree with you james all of the time but you know your rulebook like my mom knows the bible
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Kidder on -
"How can someone who’s never been to an officiating camp, clinic or seminar know what an official is doing right or wrong? How do you know what level of training an official has or what level of basketball they get paid to work? "
BECAUSE I'VE BEEN PLAYING THE GAME OF BASKETBALL SINCE I WAS 6 and can recognize a FRAUD when I see it.
DO A POLL, show a photo of each ref and see where the ratings fall lowest, we will see which ref is consistently calling games poorly.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Schmidt on
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Oh snap
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Permalink Reply by James Veres on
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"we get touch fouls called on us and are mauled on the other end!", "but we got just as many calls at the end". Jake buddy you have to stick with one arguement. You either get fouls called for you or you don't. You can't say it happens both ways just take make an arguement. You say the officials gave you calls at the end when it was too late? Fouls at the end of the game don't count, because its too late? Guess the points you score at the end of the game when you can't win shouldn't count either then. "I get it, you're one of the officials! You're garbage too!" You can have that opinion if you'd like. A players opinion is irrelevant whether it be good or bad because a player is qualified to evaluate officials, well atleast not most of them. Do you go to practice and tell your coach he doesn't know what he's doing? Probably not. You know why? Because he has more knowledge and experience in what he does than you do. Same thing here. When you officiate or playat a level that I have officiated at then we can talk.
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Permalink Reply by Sean Ball on
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Well I can't wait to check back to this post later today....
James, as a UH vertern who has played in somewhere around 10 seasons I think you are one of the best if not best ref I have had in UH. One reason is that you know you sh*t as reference in every post you make with so many stats and rules I get as dizzy as Diamond and the second is (most of the time) will explain you call if asked.
Playing in this league for a long time, I can honestly say that the quality of the officiating has dropped off substaintially. Even if you want to argue that the refs are making the same calls, how the refs handle the games is progressively worse. Now if thats because players are more physically abusive or the refs are having sensitivity issues would probably need to be determined by a 3rd party.
I approached UH a few seasons back with the idea of a GM input (or scorecard may be more appropriate) on the officals. This would not be to criticize the officiating but put an incentive out there. The better officials woudn't necessarily get paid more on a per game basis, but they would get the opportunity to ref the playoff games in a preferred order similar to crews in the NBA or NFL. This would lead to more games and more money. This gives the GM of the teams the opportunity to not only give negative feedback, but I think more importantly postive feedback on its officials.
And finally I am not trying to bash the refs, they could probably come on here and bash my game more than I could bash their officiating. However, I think where a lot of people are coming from is the fact that everyone in this league pays damn good money to play. Paying the amount of money they do, we should expect a damn good product. The other option, play in a city league for $20 with the same thing....
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Permalink Reply by James Veres on
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"BECAUSE I'VE BEEN PLAYING THE GAME OF BASKETBALL SINCE I WAS 6 and can recognize a FRAUD when I see it." Really Ryan? Playing the game qualifies you to know whether officials are qualified or not? I'm not saying that you can't tell if one official is better than another, or if you've seen better officials than the guy working your game. What I am saying is that all the officials at UH are more than qualified to be working a Men's recreational basketball league.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Schmidt on
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I also would like to add that refs showing up late happens way too often. There should be docked pay and suspensions if you don't follow the rules.
