02-12-2022, 12:46 PM
(02-12-2022, 11:47 AM)81alum Wrote: This board frequently has criticized officiating, and on another thread Kyle Bacon was mentioned as missing two different endline calls.
What did you think of last nights officiating of our game: Karen Lasuik, Lisa Jones, and Tyler Trimble? I can think of one or two pretty bad calls but overall I felt the officiating receded into the background much as it should. There was that one call when I think Lexie (could be wrong) was called for fouling someone with her back while she was standing still, another on Wilson for bumping legs when she was getting around a screener. I thought both were questionable, but you have to expect a little of that with every game. How do these three rank in terms of Pac 12 officials?
A blowout win usually doesn't engender looking closely at fouls, and none are game-changers. Maybe Utah feels differently. Lisa Jones rarely gets my notice for bad calls.
There were two early, consecutive offensive fouls called on Utah players who handed the ball off to someone and then got called for a moving screen on a pick. Obviously they're calling that differently this year and I've not figured out when it should or shouldn't be called. Brink's foul #1 was one I wasn't sure about, but the TV had a poor angle to see whether she got the shooter with her hands. It certainly wasn't "She got her with the body" as the announcer made up. (Brink clearly fouled, but wasn't called, on a block just before foul #1. Maybe a make-up?) At the end, there were the usual "Give the ball to the team way behind" calls that I didn't consider. (Because of Sling didn't get the game into the schedule, I didn't record it, so I can't go back and review.)
By the way, I thought the call on Lexie(?) Hull was ok. I felt she leaned back into the opponent. The TV camera angle didn't make it obvious, but the ref was where she could see the movement.
There are many occupations I wouldn't want to have. Officiating fast moving sports contests is one of them.
- You've got less than a quarter second to blow the whistle;
- You've only got two eyes;
- Something like half the fouls occur where you can't see them because a player's body is in the way;
- Sometimes each side has a complaint, but you have to call it one way;
- The convention is that the officials rarely overrule each other so mistakes don't get corrected;
- When you make a mistake, every one will see it;
- Half the audience is unabashedly prejudiced against each call or missed call;
- The official probably has a prejudice (for/against teams/coaches/players/style of play) but has to avoid that working its way into the calls.
- Some calls or non-calls have (or should have) game-changing consequences
A lot of those apply to announcers too.
But, just because it is a tough job doesn't mean that mistakes should be swept under the rug. If there were an easy way to post short clips, I'd post a few seconds of the two Kyle Bacon calls (Az@Ore; UCLA@WSU). Each decided the game, with the call against UCLA being more unforgiveable (calling something that didn't happen vs not calling something that was 50-50). (I have sympathy for Aria Barnes. Two of the refs were Missy & Kyle!)
