Valley Officiating

[Aargh]

This subject is getting discussed in a lot of game threads, which scatters the discussion so I thought I'd start a thread just for discussing this everlasting discussion.

I'll just start with a known fact. There is no such thing as a Valley official. There are only NCAA-certified officials. I assume they're certified. The officials work as many games in a week as they can schedule, so they're officiating multiple conferences. The Valley upped its pay scale a few years ago and now mostly shares officials who work at and above the CUSA, MWC levels. The less experienced officials and experienced officials with weak reviews tend to work mainly conferences below that level. The Valley employs officials from the upper echelon of D1 officials.

So, why are MVC officials so bad when they're officiating our games? They're probably about the same, but there's not the emotional attachment when a Valley fan watches a B12 or B1G game, so fewer questionable calls are noticed.

There are two factors that affect the officiating. One is the conference. The conference may have guidelines, areas of emphasis, or enforcement goals that differ from other conferences. The conference may request (or possibly require) officials to call MVC games diferently than those officials call games in other conferences.

The second thing that affects the way games are called is the way games are played. The Valley plays a very physical style all the way out to the perimeter. There is probably more hacking, grabbing, holding, and "in your jock strap" defenses in the Valley than in most other leagues. That forces the officials to decide what's incidental contact, what's contact that doesn't affect the play, etc. The more decisions the officials have to make, the more they're going to make the wrong decision. Someone might get mugged on a drive and there's a no call. But, touch someone's arm when they're trying to catch a pass, and that "ticky-tack" contact that's so minor compared to something uncalled is more obvious and gets called.

From what I've seen there's an NCAA emphasis on block/charge and the circle under the basket is intended to discourage collisions near the basket. Charge calls are way up in every game in any conference this year.

[Wufan]

Excellent summary! We all feel like WE (insert your team affiliation here) are getting jobbed when there is a close game. Tons of emotional attachment, and some DVR rewinds that can really be used to nit-pick the officials.

I've been reading here, reading Shockernet, and reading some of the other in-game threads on other boards. In the end, rarely if ever does a poster make a big deal about how "well officiated" a game is, and there is always a hand full of posters that complain about missed call X or Y.

Since it is overly apparent that every school thinks it is getting jobbed every game, the bottom line is that we are passionate fans, not paid, bi-partisan officials.

[MoValley John]

I will add this. I read a lot of message boards from a lot of different teams and conferences. The one single common denominator of all of them is the poor officiating. Either this country is chock-full of bad officials or everybody across the country simply likes to blame their woes on the refs. I will add that each conference does emphasize different things so moving from one conference to another to officiate games could cause some inconsistency.

[Ace Dad]

This is an excellent analysis.

I just finished watching the Baylor at Kansas game and I believe that the officials made many good calls and missed some calls. However, I had benefit of watching the replay and I am watching the whole floor, not a zone of the floor or a specific play.

I honestly believe that officiating evens out, over time. Do I think the better players are protected? Somewhat. That does not bother me. I do not want to see Doug McDermott hurt because it is open season on him.

[ictjay]

This is an excellent analysis.

I just finished watching the Baylor at Kansas game and I believe that the officials made many good calls and missed some calls. However, I had benefit of watching the replay and I am watching the whole floor, not a zone of the floor or a specific play.

I honestly believe that officiating evens out, over time. Do I think the better players are protected? Somewhat. That does not bother me. I do not want to see Doug McDermott hurt because it is open season on him.

It does even out. I've seen McDermott get mugged several games, but it was being called both ways. For WSU if Hall gets banged, he continues on and scores/rebounds. Stutz falls down. Which way do you go?

[troutangler]

The conferences don't direct officials to call games differently. High school officials, who might one night work a 2A girls game, and the next night a 5A boys game, have to adjust how they officiate games. These guys are dealing with mostly 6'2"-7' men every night, all season. The officials work for coordinators, not the league office, so the league offices don't direct officials how to call certain plays, but the rule book does.

After officiating for a while, your perspective changes drastically when watching a game, even when your favorite team is playing. There are plays that happen at JQH and half the crowd goes absolutely apesh*t and it's obvious to me that the call or no-call was exactly correct. I used to be the same way though: Extremely biased to the extent that my team was always getting screwed.

I have seen MSU fans refer to the UNI game on Friday as a "screw job". A screw job would mean that those involved did something with intent to make use lose the game, which is simply not true. They may have missed a travel, but I know it was not on purpose. There are a few missed calls in every game, that one just happened to be at the end.

[shocker3]

I will say that I think the officiating in the Valley has improved over the last few years.

The one thing that still seems to stand out to me is that both Hall and Stutz get called for more phantom type calls then the other players on our team.

Other than that, I can't really say I have any complaints with the officiating this year.

[MoValley John]

This is an excellent analysis.

I just finished watching the Baylor at Kansas game and I believe that the officials made many good calls and missed some calls. However, I had benefit of watching the replay and I am watching the whole floor, not a zone of the floor or a specific play.

I honestly believe that officiating evens out, over time. Do I think the better players are protected? Somewhat. That does not bother me. I do not want to see Doug McDermott hurt because it is open season on him.

It does even out. I've seen McDermott get mugged several games, but it was being called both ways. For WSU if Hall gets banged, he continues on and scores/rebounds. Stutz falls down. Which way do you go?

Under the hoop, officials pretty much let the big boys play. Generally, they call the hacks on the arms and let the body contact go. I see both sides of the argument, if you put a body on an offensive player to gain an advantage, it should be called a foul, but at the same time, if you want to mix it up down low, don't be a Sally and you should expect some body contact. Sack up and play.

What I saw UNI doing was avoiding the hacks but grabbing jersey. They never got whistled for it. While I don't have a problem with physical play, jersey grabbing is low rent and in my opinion should be called. I saw these photos on the White and Blue review, they pretty much confirmed what I was seeing live at the game.




Whoops, this last one is just Dougie getting fouled and not getting a whistle.

[Wufan]

I don't like the grabbing at all!!! That said, kudos to the players for gaining an advantage that the refs aren't calling and shame on the officials for not seeing that. As long as "the grab" isn't being called, it will continue, and the opposition needs to "adjust" their defense as well.

I also think that the Valley officiating has gotten better over the past three or so years, but maybe that's because my team has been winning more.

[troutangler]

I don't like the grabbing at all!!! That said, kudos to the players for gaining an advantage that the refs aren't calling and shame on the officials for not seeing that. As long as "the grab" isn't being called, it will continue, and the opposition needs to "adjust" their defense as well.

I also think that the Valley officiating has gotten better over the past three or so years, but maybe that's because my team has been winning more.

1. We don't know that the stuff in the pictures above weren't called fouls.

2. Not all of those are fouls by themselves. You have to see the entire play and make a decision. That's why fans sometimes complain about "late whistles".