TGU @ Granville

Our 3rd game of the season was against TGU (towner, granville and upham) at Granville.  Back in the day, I remember playing games in Granville…this is an old gym.  Probably the kind of gym many of you reading haven’t seen if you are not from a small rural area.  When we played high school basketball (I was probably a freshman or so), we had to pause the game several times to wipe up the condensation on the floor.  The gym is kind of built into the ground a bit, I think the back side is cut into a hill or something like that.  Either way, you get that this is an older facility.

The 7th grade game started..without a clock.  They were unable to get the score clock going for the first three quarters of the 7th grade game.  We had to ask the score table for the time remaining, score…etc.  I get that we’re not talking varsity basketball here, but I do expect a little more than something we’d have available for 3rd and 4th graders.  I don’t begrudge the school not being able to get things going…technical errors happen.  I would have liked to see some sort of backup plan in place or something, but we play with what we have.

Our 7th grade is still heavily in the skill development stage of their career.  There is nothing wrong with where our girls are at developmentally, and for the most part the skills can’t be rushed…one thing builds on another so they all need to be worked up at a steady pace.  They are getting better every game, I have no complaints with their progress.  Once in awhile though we will run in to a team that has one or two players that are quite advanced.  At this age level, 1 player…esp if it’s a ball handler, can dominate the game.  This team had 1 player that was a skill level above our 7th grade, and another that was at the very upper end of our girls’ current ability.  Our girls worked really hard but they were not able to over come these two players.  The TGU coach played these two girls in the first and third quarters only…and during those quarters they handily outscored us.  During the 2nd and 4th quarters when these girls were not in, we out scored them handily…but it wasn’t enough to make up the difference.  Our 7th grade took an unfortunate loss.

When the 8th grade game started…I noticed that both of these girls that dominated the 7th grade game were starting for the 8th grade.  They ended up playing the entire game.  I was a little disappointed in this.  I’m not sure if they are 7th or 8th grade students…but my opinion is if you are going to play more than 1/2 of the upper level game you shouldn’t be playing in the lower level game.  In any case, it wasn’t my call.

The 8th grade game started slow for us.  We played well defensively, but we couldn’t get a shot to fall.  We ended the first quarter with no points…  There were several quality shots but they just wouldn’t fall.  The girls were moving pretty well, they were executing our game plan…getting to the rim, we just couldn’t finish.  The second quarter started off similarly slow, but then the girls kicked it in to gear and scored several times.  I think we ended the 1/2 with 12 points or so.  They hit all 12 in the last 1/2 of the 2nd quarter.  For this age level that type of scoring isn’t too bad.  Had they been able to do that from the beginning…obviously it would have been a different game.

The second half started like the 2nd quarter finished…but then the weirdness started happening.  One of the ref’s stopped the game to issue a warning about rough play and cheap shots to both a girl on our team and one on their team.  Before this warning, no fouls had been called on the pair.  The next time down the floor, the same ref stopped the game and issued a warning to both teams.  She said if the “cheap shots” kept going they would stop the game.  I didn’t understand this at all.  The girls on neither team had been called for fouls, the warning as far as the stats were concerned, came out of no where.  I’m all in favor of the refs taking control of the rough play, but I’d like to see them do so via foul calls.  If someone fouls out because of their play…that’s fine.  If the refs are letting the game get rougher and rougher…the players will adapt to that.  If the refs call the game closer and closer the players will adapt to that.  This is an unfortunate truth to basketball…the officiating from one game to another can vary so widely the players need to learn to adapt.

The game was back and forth pretty tightly…and for what it’s worth, the officiating was pretty even…up to that last minute…

I’m going to preface this rant with what I told my girls at the end of the game…We are the ones that put ourselves into a position where 1 or two questionable calls completely changed the outcome of the game.  Had we played better in the first 1.5 quarters, we wouldn’t have had to worry about the stuff that transpired at the end of the game.  TBH, the negativity that happened at the end was most likely my fault.

I’m not sure -exactly- how the events went down…even if I were to relay the store right after the game the exact order of events would probably be in question.  I get pretty in to the games…so I’m not committing what’s happening to long term memory…

The trouble started under 1min left in the game.  The ball was at our end, someone shot and one of my post players went up for a rebound…she grabbed it and the defensive girl…IMO was over the back.  The ref under the hole called it a jump ball.  A basic understanding of “over the back” as it comes from wiki:

over the back:

a foul committed by a player who tries to rebound the ball by pushing, moving or climbing on a player’s back who is already in position to rebound the ball.

There is a difference of opinion on other sites, some say this should be called a push or whatever.  From the ref’s perspective, both were in possession of the ball, so he called a jump.  I said, and I quote “You’ve got to be kidding me!”.  At that point, the ref engaged me in a heated conversation.  I did not say anything further at all…I shook my head, hands in pockets (I put my hands in my pockets so I don’t wave them around like a moron…I do this most all game every game) and walked away from him towards the other end of my bench.  His final parting shot at me was, “why don’t you sit down”.  Everyone knows, I stand and pace up and down the length of my bench all game…this is nothing new.  This ref knows this (more on that in a min).  The possession arrow was ours.  We run a basic box screen in the paint play, the ball is inbounded to one of my posts…she no more than touches the ball then the same ref calls her for an elbow.  It wasn’t just a TWEET “elbow!”, it was one of those exaggerated with authority motion type calls.  I said and I quote, “seriously?” head cocked to the side, hands out in the palm up fashion…just a “come on man” type body language.  This ref charges over to me ready to engage me in some sort of back and forth something or other.  I just stood there, shaking my head.  The other ref (whom I know personally, she’s a friend/previous co-worker of my mother’s) runs over to get between us.  She gives him a look and he heads back to the baseline…then she starts to talk to me to “calm me down”.  ”the over the back was the right call..” etc.  I told her in a very matter of fact tone, “i disagree…but it’s irrelevant at this point…you can’t tell me that quick elbow wasn’t targeted directly at me.”  ”he’s there, he makes the call, I didn’t see it…” and so on…being diplomatic.  Finally she said we need to calm down, and I replied “if he continues to act like this, don’t expect me to not respond”.  I was calm an civil to her, like I said…I know her personally and she’s a pretty good person.

So, the foul is called…the score is tired or there abouts.  They are giving them the ball under the basket…then the ref decides to check to see if they are in the bonus…they are.  Fine, then he asks the coach to “choose who’s going to shoot”….I came unwrapped at this point.  The coach doesn’t get to choose who shoots, the person that was fouled needs to be shooting.  I am telling this over and over again (I’m probably a bit animated) and they are repeating it’s a bonus, I said, “I get that…but the person fouled needs to be shooting”.  They said two people where there…I said, “fine, she didn’t foul both of them…it’s up to the ref to decide who was fouled and is shooting”.  Nope, they let him pick..obviously he picks his best shooter.  It was his guard.  Now you’re going to tell me that on an out of bounds play his short guard is going to be guarding the tallest post player on my team?  I was piiiiissssseeeeedddd.

They hit 1 or 2, I don’t remember…we were within a shot of winning.  Less than 30 seconds on the clock.  We either inbound or rebound the ball and cross the half line, I’m -screaming- for a time out.  The ref that confronted me looks at me…then looks back at the ball, won’t give me the time out.  I didn’t see the other ref’s position because the ref that ignored me is the back ref, by mid floor.  There is a scrum and the ball goes out of bounds.  Their ball….I’m just smoking.  One of my girls gets mad, slams her hands on the floor type of mad.  I call her over and give her hell about reacting like that.  The ref is following her over, I said I would handle her….I chew her out a bit.

They have the ball now…and score.  They are now up by 3.  We cross the 1/2 line and I am able to call a time out this time.  I setup a play for a girl to shoot a 3.  The play isn’t executed exactly right, but she gets a nice clean look at a 3….it rims out, but one of my posts is right there for a quick put back…we’re down by 1 and I call a fast time out.  Refs see it, blow the whistle and I’m looking at the clock…5….4…3….2, stops at 2.1.  Um, there was 5 seconds.  Surprisingly the guy that was going after me had my back on the 5 seconds.  They can’t just punch in the time on the clock, so they run it up to a min, and try to get it to 5…nope, stopped at 2.5.  The ref tells the score keeper to count to 2 before they flip it on…./me sighs

We press, knock the ball out of bounds…but now the clock is to .6  I’ve got no way to know if they counted, if there should be more on there…no idea.  They inbound, we drop the game by 1.

I was highly disappointed by the officiating, but like I said before this…it’s our fault we put ourselves into a position where a questionable call or two can change the out come.

And the reason that ref knows I pace…we played him with our 6th grade in a tournament.  The boys beat them by a pretty wide margin.