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N.J. High School Hoops Team Takes Bad Call to Court
A bad call at the end of a high school basketball game raises the question of whether a court should reverse the outcome.
Precedent says this likely goes nowhere, and as bad as I feel for the kids involved, this is a can of worms you don’t ever want to open. Thoughts?
pretty ballsey for those refs to change the call after that celebration and with no video to go to (with one ref calling the shot good in real time).
Note that the Harstock drop was pre-replay.
I work for Section IX Athletics in NYSPHSAA. A section in NY is equal to a district in the PIAA.N.J. High School Hoops Team Takes Bad Call to Court
A bad call at the end of a high school basketball game raises the question of whether a court should reverse the outcome.
Precedent says this likely goes nowhere, and as bad as I feel for the kids involved, this is a can of worms you don’t ever want to open. Thoughts?
Just a guess....but having some experience with how these things can unfold....I'm thinking 2 officials had to feel the basket should be disallowed....perhaps the 3rd vote/ opinion, came from the asst. director of the NYSIAA who was in attendance and was part of the huddle. Unfortunately, the 3rd official, who made the correct call was likely convinced he was in wrong.
Agreed but the old line is "irrefutable evidence". the point being, if they were going to override the ref that called it good in real-time, they had to be sure. The video evidence says that they were wrong.
And, if I understand the complaint, the referees had left the court of play and then came back.
The NJSIAA rep wasn't "in" the huddle...I call BS on that reporting. The official whose call it was called the basket good, but then called his partner over to discuss it. The trail official offered him help and was pretty emphatic that the basket was no good. The official then took that info and changed his call to no basket.
That's simply a BS part of the lawsuit. The referees were discussing the call on the sideline about 2 feet "out of bounds"...that's not "leaving the visual confines of the court", which is the Fed rule.
I wasn't there, so I don't know if that is true. I did see that alleged on twitter.....and we all know that if you want the truth, that's where you go. I also heard that the official that made the call had run off.....but apparently the assistant director of the association collared the others and created a huddle. I'm gonna assume that everyone had the purest intentions. In my 52 years of experience, I've never seen anyone attempt to get it wrong. This is one of those times where they did. The appropriate thing would be for Camden to forfeit the game they clearly lost.
thanks for the clarification. And for the official that was "emphatic", video evidence showed the shot was good.
..and I'd sympathize if it turned out the video evidence showed that they blew the call on the court during the action. In other words, they just missed it. To overturn the correct call to an incorrect one is egregious. That dude should lose his license, card or ID...whatever it is that allows him to ref.
There is a huge officiating shortage (in NJ, and pretty much everywhere)...no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water. That crew made a bad call, and I'm sure it'll be a long time before any of them see a game at that level (if ever again). But it doesn't help anyone to tell them to stop officiating...they are obviously respected officials to get that assignment, and what doing that really does is penalize Middle School or Freshman teams that will now have to cancel more games due to not having any officials (as I'm guess Marshall knows all too well, unless he's lucky).
I'm pretty sure the NFHS rule book doesn't address "irrefutable evidence." I think that's college or NFL football jargon. The IAABO officials that work in our state said that decisions are final once you leave the court. Clearly a mistake was made. I'm sure all three officials feel terrible. Coaches, players and officials make mistakes....only the HVCAC is omniscient. LOL
My only comment is that it wasn't a "bad call". It was a horrendous call.
Yes, officials are leaving high school athletics at an alarming rate. Contests at all levels jr hi, jv and varsity are being cancelled or often officiated with less than the full compliment...ie 1 on a basketball, baseball or soccer game. Parents/fans/coaches and their abuse is a major reason.
It was, but the shot left the shooters hand with either .5 or .6 seconds left, and the refs don't have the benefit of replay to see it again. They are human and made a terrible call...unfortunately it impacted a state semifinal, and not a JV game in December.
You are 100% correct. Also, these officials had to be among the top rated by coaches/associations in order to get such a high profile assignment. When I see something like this, my sympathy first goes to the young student athletes and then to the officials that missed the call. Different emotions, but no one feels good about this.
Funny, I'll bet it's many of the same folks that think football coaches (division 1) stink.
Yeah...I don't care. You can't be "emphatic" and overturn a call unless you know it to be wrong. A massive failure.
That’s a great look that refutes a lot of the published article. Thanks for sharing.
Agreed but this wasn't a close call. the ball leaves the player's hand with 1.1 seconds. how in the world do you overturn the correct call that was made on the floor?
That clock isn't synched up correctly (another reason that using video review isn't that practical)...based on some cell phone footage, it left his hand at either .5 or .6 (I think .6).
Fair enough. Regardless, a half second is a LOT of time, even in HS (absent the backboard light like the NBA).
Banning video replay is a tacit admition of ongoing and pervasive referee misconduct. This is sorta like many judges, but m9st judicial prejudices are subject to review.
Does Florida allow referees to grab cell phones and watch videos to change calls? And not having the infrastructure for video replay is an "admition" of "pervasive referee misconduct"? And somehow a high school basketball game not being set up to handle replay has something to do with judicial prejudices?
See post 15...all of the bad reporting and BS thrown into the lawsuit isn't helping things.
I kept the Home book for Boys and Girls basketball for 15 years. I think that most fans would be surprised about how many errors are made every game between the Home/Visiting books and scoreboard. As stated- the actual score is the Home Book.
Replay is inexpensive and readily available. What other possible explanation could they have other than to protect the referee, especially in a very important playoff game?
You don't think that the ~$95 (plus gas $, if they live far enough away) that those guys made was worth all of the sleepless nights, people online trying to track down their names/phone numbers to shame them, people on social media declaring that they intentionally fixed the game and/or wishing death on them, etc?
"Protecting the referee" would be having replay to avoid situations like this. Very few sports at the high school level throughout the country have replay. If it's so cheap, should I suggest to my local little league that we add replay this summer?
I believe the FG was the same year as the interception that they couldn't overturn because replay was malfunctioning. Don't know if it was 2014, but pretty sure it was both in the same game.
