Jay Williams on the officiating in this Tournament

[BuffOrange]

Recency bias galore with stupid comments like this. What were the 2nd & 3rd worst officiated tournaments ever? The best? Does Jay Williams even remember the Brandon Roy UW team getting blatantly and hilariously jobbed vs Uconn right after they were gifted a game vs Illinois? I'm guessing no. College refs suck and always have. Replay unfortunately solves nothing and needs to die in every sport but that is hopeless.

 

[HoustonCuse]

Hey Cowtown, when I was in college, I worked in the gym which meant a lot of sitting around checking ID's and whatnot. Some dudes in their mid-40's used to show up to play basketball on Sunday's sometimes and would pay me $20 to officiate their games. Mind you, zero-point-zero training here. I was hideous. I was absolutely guessing on any kind of call whenever there was a drive and/or contact. I was totally undisciplined in where to look and how to look for true fouls and stuff so it was all just a blur. Anyway. It truly sucked because I knew I was hideous but what can you do, if you act wishy washy about any of it you are done for.

Thought you'd enjoy my story and it does make you appreciate the skill involved in even being remotely credible at refereeing (although I still gripe like mad at them).

 

[Newhouser]

I have coached and I have reffed. Of the two my opinion is that reffing is much harder. That said there are calls that are inexplicable other than the ref just flat wasn't paying attention. I actually got my first T in over 10 years this season. There is no question I deserved the T and there is no question the ref deserved my ire. My player (my son actually) is playing soft off the ball defense on his man, ball handler picks up his dribble and but didn't have a shot so he launched himself sideways into my player who to quite honest wasn't even looking at him, he was looking at his man. The ref calls my guy for a foul. I looked to the other ref and asked "Aren't you going to over rule him?" "Nope." I called a timeout and as the ref was walking to the scorers table I walked out on the court and said "Man I feel sorry for you." "Why's that?" he responds. Me: "Because that was the most embarrassing call I've ever seen and all these people saw it too!" T! I said "Thank you" and I walked back to my huddle apologized to my team and told them I owed them 2 points. One of the kids said "That's alright coach, they owe us a hell of lot more than that!" Bottom line, reffing is very hard and you get what you pay for. Half of my leagues refs are high school refs that ref our league on Saturdays and Sundays. Most of them are fairly good. The other half are just some Joe's that for some reason are willing to ref youth rec league games for $30 a game. Without them there would be no youth rec leagues so I give them respect too. But when they make calls or don't make calls that bring potential injuries into the equation I let them know about it. After this game several parents on the other team came up to me and told me stories about how bad that ref had been in other games they had played, which I already knew. The guys a tool and I played softball against him for years and he was a tool then. I actually witnessed him get thrown out of a softball game for intentionally throwing at runner and hitting him. That bit of back history likely played into my lack of patience because I usually have a pretty friendly banter with the refs.

To play devils advocate - I think there is more problem on the other side. I think coaches and parents that are out of control, by percentage, out number the refs who are horrendous. I've watched some kids and parents say and do things towards refs that would make me never put on the stripes.

 

[cuseincincy]

To play devils advocate - I think there is more problem on the other side. I think coaches and parents that are out of control, by percentage, out number the refs who are horrendous. I've watched some kids and parents say and do things towards refs that would make me never put on the stripes.

I would disagree completely because you brought "percentages" in. I would agree that the parents/coaches are a bigger issue when they occur but in terms of shear numbers its not close. In our league this year we had exactly 1 situation where parents got out of control and zero from coaches. There are horrendous calls from refs multiple times per game every game. The one situation I refer that occurred didn't even have anything to do with the game. Two parent who brought a previous issue out in public during the game resulted in both of them being escorted out of the building by refs and coaches. I wasn't there but the head of officials told me about it. I have seen situations of parents being out of control but they are much more rare, at least in our area, than some would like us to believe. I do agree that when parents/coaches do get out of control those go way beyond a bad call.

 

[Mo_Cuse]

I only saw two really bad calls and they were the Barry travel/charge that went uncalled and the Gonzaga goal tend. Those guys do a pretty good job overall. You know how many plays they see per year? And they typically get about 90% right. It's easy for Jay Williams to say they are horrible when he's watching slow motion replays. He's a plug

 

[cuseincincy]

Those guys do a pretty good job overall. You know how many plays they see per year? And they typically get about 90% right.

There are a lot of jobs out there that a 10% failure rate get you on the unemployment line for incompetence. I'd say the refs get a lot more than 90% right, its just that sometimes the ones they miss are glaring.