Officiating

[tycat947]

I was at the game and during the timeouts, Sherri was all over the refs. She was also fairly demonstrative on the sidelines. You just couldn't see it on TV.

Yes, those of us who are fortunate to attend the games know that she does get on the officials when need be.

 

[bluesooner17]

The biggest problem I have with officials is there seems to be no accountability. Just my opinion, but my belief is all games should be reviewed for accountability of the officiating crew. A grading system of sort that would allow an official to be punished in some way to offset the mistakes made. When replay was put in to affect in some sports the officials seemed to take it as a jab against them, but just my opinion it is the only thing that holds them accountable and they didn't seem to like it. I will say since replay was made available it has help the respect of people towards officials in my opinion. The calls they make that would disagree with only to see in replay the official got it right gives you a better opinion of them.

 

[oketex]

Years ago when I was officiating, I worked an Arkansas game and there was a call, to this day I don't know if I missed something that happened or it was just a lot of contact but the Arkansas coach raised so much hell that I was suspended for two games. There use to be some accountability but I have been out for far to long. I will say that I came back and worked my first NCAA tourny game that year so it didn't hurt to much.

 

[MsProudSooner]

I'm currently reading "Personal Foul" by Tim Donaghy. Yes, it's about NBA officials instead of NCAA, but many of the things fans speculate about are described in the book. Do I think they are all crooked? No. Do I think many of them let personal bias influence their whistles? Yes.

 

[SoonerNorm]

I don't think their bias comes close to that of fans.

 

[MsProudSooner]

I don't think their bias comes close to that of fans.

No, but their bias has the potential to have a much larger affect on the final outcome of the game than the bias of the fans.

 

[sybarite]

It is their obvious bias that provides fans with doubt and distrust.

I have several irritations with officials. There is always the fear that the fans are influencing the calls, and many officials add to that suspicion when they exaggerate their calls that might be taken well by the home fans. It's like they are trying to curry favor with the fans.

Some officials get on some conference page to make specific types of calls, which they do to excess. Then, as the game or season wears on, we are back to where we were. Often, we see specific calls made out front, whereas the official underneath the basket is making different calls. It gets the players confused as to what to expect.

My real pet peeve is officials who call what they think happened or what they think is expected. To a large extent, this began most flagrantly in pro basketball as the league decided it needed superstars. A superstar could do no wrong. It got so bad that it probably, almost certainly, defined championships. I don't know why they thought they needed stars in order to market the game, but it led to some of the most absurd bias in sports. For a while, I couldn't tell the difference between pro wrestling.

One of the primary beneficiaries was Jordan. I once saw Jordan drive the lane and miss a layup because he was just showing off, rather lethargically. They called a foul on the drive. There were no defenders in the lane or near the lane. It was a wide open drive. Nobody even stuck out a hand to come within three or four feet of him. He just blew a layup. He sank both free throws, and I turned off pro basketball. It was enough, and it happened too often. Jordan wasn't the only beneficiary. But, he was the most flagrant that I saw.

In college ball, it seems that officials are more likely to give someone a call because of their reputation. One player has a reputation for being great. So, you let their fouls go, whereas you call fouls on someone guarding them. It's not trying to market something like in pro basketball. It's more like an insecurity. Everyone says this person is great so I have to go along with it.

The failure of an official to sit Mulkey down isn't really a problem with officials. If someone did that, the conference would likely get rid of them. Baylor has enough pull to defend an insult to their queen. They could actually make calls that would limit her effectiveness, like calling technicals when she has people make certain fouls deliberately knowing that they will not be called, i.e., fouling Courtney while she is out of bounds.

It is obvious that the charging/blocking calls have become a nightmare for officials. I really can't help with that one based on how the rules are written. Too many mistakes are made on this call. But, the call that I think is rarely called enough is the bar arm that players use to push off an opponent as they drive. That is a charge, and it is rarely called.

I will make a suggestion to officials. If you have called more than forty fouls in a game, it should require a report as to what one team or the other was doing with fouls in order to gain a strategical advantage. We shouldn't live at the line, and our bench players should not be in the game with two minutes gone.

 

[SoonerNorm]

No, but their bias has the potential to have a much larger affect on the final outcome of the game than the bias of the fans.

1) The problem with your argument is, if a fan is biased, they would never see the officials as being unbiased. Therefore, in the eyes of the fan, when a call goes against the home team they disagree with, the officials are always wrong and the fan is always right. How many fans who complain about officials on this board have you seen ever admit they were wrong?

2) If one were to look at all of the officiating complaints on this board, it would be overwhelming evidence that all women's basketball officials are either graduates of Baylor or Texas. I will bet money the overwhelming number of officials who call our games are not from the state of Texas nor did they attend school at either of those institutions.

 

[sybarite]

1) The problem with your argument is, if a fan is biased, they would never see the officials as being unbiased. Therefore, in the eyes of the fan, when a call goes against the home team they disagree with, the officials are always wrong and the fan is always right. How many fans who complain about officials on this board have you seen ever admit they were wrong?

2) If one were to look at all of the officiating complaints on this board, it would be overwhelming evidence that all women's basketball officials are either graduates of Baylor or Texas. I will bet money the overwhelming number of officials who call our games are not from the state of Texas nor did they attend school at either of those institutions.

When the league office was in KC, the fans were probably correct when the complaint was that the officials tended to favor Missouri, Kansas, and Kansas State. Now that the league office is in Los Colinas, you might anticipate that the fans would perceive an imbalance that favors Texas schools.

As I remember, one of the reasons cited for moving to the Big Ten was the influence of Texas on the Big Twelve. Colorado always felt left out of both.

When you have a coach such as Mulkey going out on to the court during play and not being called on it, is that OK? When the fans complain, are they simply biased? If another coach had gone after an official the way that Mulkey did yesterday, would they have not at least received a technical?

Baylor has now had two different players use their fist on an opponent during a game. Did Baylor punish either player appropriately? How many fights have the Baylor players been in during the past five years? Who is responsible? Is there no bias in tolerating this?

When Baylor players and assistant coaches left the bench to join in an on-court fray during the Elite Eight, were any suspended for the required game for leaving the bench to join a fight? No? Why not?

 

[soonerstar]

Yes, those of us who are fortunate to attend the games know that she does get on the officials when need be.

I have been fortunate to be a season ticket holder for the past 14 years and attend every home game. I stand by my comments.

 

[MsProudSooner]

1) The problem with your argument is, if a fan is biased, they would never see the officials as being unbiased. Therefore, in the eyes of the fan, when a call goes against the home team they disagree with, the officials are always wrong and the fan is always right. How many fans who complain about officials on this board have you seen ever admit they were wrong?

2) If one were to look at all of the officiating complaints on this board, it would be overwhelming evidence that all women's basketball officials are either graduates of Baylor or Texas. I will bet money the overwhelming number of officials who call our games are not from the state of Texas nor did they attend school at either of those institutions.

It doesn't take much to make a 3 to 5 point swing in favor of one team or another - call a charge instead of a foul on the defender 2 or 3 times. Ignore walking calls. Ignore fouls when players score so the player don't get to shoot free throws and the defender doesn't get a foul. In a league as evenly matched as most of ours is, 3 to 5 points can decide a lot of games.

I don't think all the officials are graduates of Baylor or Texas and I have no clue where they live but i KNOW that in general, the women's game doesn't get the best of the best when it comes to officiating.

There are 2 statements with regards to officiating which are probably never true:

1) The officials always have it in for my team.
2) The officials are always fair and unbiased.

Officials are human are going to make mistakes. I can live with honest mistakes. But whoever controls officiating should try to do something about the worst of the lot and if they know an official has any kind of bias for against a team, player or coach, they shouldn't officiate those team's games.

Read the book, Norm.

 

[SoonerNorm]

Officiating mistakes are made in every sport at every level. Some fans are much less knowledgeable about charge vs block than they think they are.

I'm sorry but just because someone says something in a book it doesn't make it true.

 

[sybarite]

Officiating mistakes are made in every sport at every level. Some fans are much less knowledgeable about charge vs block than they think they are.

I'm sorry but just because someone says something in a book it doesn't make it true.

Norm, when a league has admitted guilt, and officials have been fired, you have a problem. When officials have been sent to prison, you have a problem. When more than one official have made accusations, you have a problem.

As is typical of organizations, nobody wants to admit that corruption occurs. It does. We've even had fixing among athletes. These are just the admitted cases for which there was enough evidence to prove something.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

I think one of our problem is that we have built a reputation for fouling too much. KK is an example. Some officials are expecting her to foul so if they are out of position and see something that might be a foul, they call it against her.

She get things called fouls that would not be so called against others. Look at the picture of Nina Davis in today's paper. She is obviously fouling - but it was not called in the game. That would have been called against KK.

Those kinds of things tend to have major impact on games.

 

[MsProudSooner]

I think one of our problem is that we have built a reputation for fouling too much. KK is an example. Some officials are expecting her to foul so if they are out of position and see something that might be a foul, they call it against her.

She get things called fouls that would not be so called against others. Look at the picture of Nina Davis in today's paper. She is obviously fouling - but it was not called in the game. That would have been called against KK.

Those kinds of things tend to have major impact on games.

That's an example of officiating by reputation and it's symptom of poor officiating.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

If you are watching the Louisville-Duke game right now on ESPN2, you are seeing a case of biased officiating. There were just two very hard fouls by Duke against Louisville. The officials refused to call them.
Louisville was caught where we find ourselves - two starters on the bench pretty early in the game.

One dramatic one was seen directly by the female official (who also calls lots of Big-12 games) with the pony tail (avoiding names). A Duke player literally knocked the Louisville player out of bounds - absolutely no question about it - a VERY hard foul. She refused to call it. Now why would she do that? Did you just see the hard - very hard - over the back foul by Duke that was not called? Why not?

By the way, Norm, I am pulling for Duke - but can still see horrible calls favoring them.

 

[SoonerNorm]

If you are watching the Louisville-Duke game right now on ESPN2, you are seeing a case of biased officiating. There were just two very hard fouls by Duke against Louisville. The officials refused to call them.
Louisville was caught where we find ourselves - two starters on the bench pretty early in the game.

One dramatic one was seen directly by the female official (who also calls lots of Big-12 games) with the pony tail (avoiding names). A Duke player literally knocked the Louisville player out of bounds - absolutely no question about it - a VERY hard foul. She refused to call it. Now why would she do that? Did you just see the hard - very hard - over the back foul by Duke that was not called? Why not?

By the way, Norm, I am pulling for Duke - but can still see horrible calls favoring them.

You can absolutely see bad calls, no question. If you continue watching you will most likely see some bad calls go the other way as well.

 

[sybarite]

Duke is probably twenty points better at home than on the road this year. You can forgive losses on the road to A&M, Nebraska, South Carolina, Uconn,, and Florida State. But, a loss to BC is a bad one. They barely beat Syracuse and North Carolina in Durham. It would not surprise me to see Duke be about a #3 or 4 seed, but lose the first game they have on the road.

 

[SoonerinNC]

When I was the coach at Star-Spencer we would get lists of officials from the conference. We were allowed to mark off x number of officials and the other coaches were not supposed to hire them for our games.

There was an official that I thought was very good but I noticed that one of the veteran coaches marked him off. I asked him why and he said, yes he is a good official most of the time but he has rabbit ears. His explanation was that in a tight game he was easily intimidated by a home crowd.

Later in the season we were playing an away game and this official was there. With 5 or 6 seconds left the score was tied and our best player went up for a jump shot and was clearly fouled. The official held up his arm called the foul and the score keeper let the clock run out. The crowd went wild spewing abuse on the official. The clock keeper also threw a rolled up towel that hit the official in the back. The official then claimed he didn't call the foul and that time had run out. We lost in overtime. Clearly the rabbit ears cost me a game that we should have won.

Considering that we played overtimes the charge call against Carter was crucial to the game. Not sure the official was biased but I'm sure the fact that we were in Austin was a factor.

 

[sybarite]

I thought the Carter charge was erroneous. Had she been a Longhorn, it would have been a blocking foul. The opponent was moving along side of her, not in front of her.