Officiating

[jeff93]

I was debating officiating bias with my wife today and was saying how the game last night really started to change when all the 50/50 calls started going A&M's way. But then there were two critical calls (the charge on A&M on a made basket, and the resetting the shot clock) that could have gone against VU and didn't.

So, there is evidence that goes both ways, at least from last night.

But, one thing I have noticed over the few decades I have been following VU basketball that leads me to believe something is going on.

When VU is playing an SEC NCAA tourney-bound team and winning late in the game, all the 50/50 calls will start to go against VU until the tourney-bound team is up 6-10 points with less than 5 minutes to go. Then, miraculously, to even things up, all the calls start to go VU's way, but they don't matter because the game is already in the opponent's hands. This is the best evidence I have related to officiating bias. It happens with startling consistency.

So, what is the solution.....be a tourney bound SEC team and you will get protected from upsets, at least to a certain degree.

[ymtn64]

Officials being human is probably the issue. Most officials have certain things they notice more than other things. I detest players getting away with camping out in the lane, and rarely getting 3 seconds called on them, so when I've officiated I've noticed I seem to make this call more than anyone else I officiated with. I love effort, but controlled effort especially from a player with less natural talent. I probably have rewarded such a player the benefit of the doubt on rebounding or getting tied up which often leads to jump balls. I rarely would call a jump ball when one player has possession and another comes in from the side or behind because almost always they have to commit a foul to cause that jump ball. I'm a HUGE fan of fundamentally boxing out correctly, and anytime a player has done this, but someone else comes seemingly through that player, I typically call that foul.

Most officials on the college level get out of position often throughout a game. I don't mean to say it's their fault though. This happens because the athletes are so quick that the officials can't always keep up with them. From that the officials many times "anticipate" calls. This is very easy to do, and doesn't really make an official bad at their job, it's just human nature. Ty and QMB are pretty good at drawing charges and probably carry that reputation throughout the league. If an official gets screened a bit and can't see all the action on a block/charge call involving either of these players, they probably get the benefit of the doubt. QMB is typically around the basket, and that protected area creates a fine line issue for him, and most officials seem to use that area almost as an excuse it seems. If they have any indication that a player has any contact with that area, then they immediately call a block. The problem with that is I don't believe they are in position to always see for certain, and thus they can make the wrong call easily without trying to be one sided or the other. It's not really about one team or another, but much more about their tendencies, and those tendencies seem to get over emphasized in the later stages of a game.

Jeff your comment about tourney bound teams has some truth to it. Upsets happen all the time, but over the course of any given season an official is going to tend to favor the team with more talent/better coached/tourney bound teams. Should this happen? NOPE, but it does anyway. Officials are taught to block out the crowd, and only deal with the players and coaches. Guess what? It is almost impossible to truly do that though. Back to what I said first, officials being human is probably the issue...

[UltimateVUFan]

36 FTA to 11

I rest my case.