83 total Free throw attempts combined. Absurb! Maybe some of yours and comments in this post cause a change in the ILH haha. That’s crazy though. James Nunuha went 22-28 at the FT line. That’s way too much Free throws.

I know hand checks are the law, but a game like this is never entertaining. Refs as a whole have to be consistent from preseason to regular season and playoffs.

Regardless, players and coaches have to react to how a certain group of refs call the game. 83 FT attempts are still crazy.

What are your thoughts Paul?

Most excellently put, Coach! And this is the significant difference between ILH and OIA officials at this point. I will add this: the ILH referees called much more hand-checking/impeding progress fouls in the championship game of the Merv Lopes Classic. Different crew from the one that worked the Kalaheo-Saint Louis game.

Part of it is affiliation/league. Part of it is individual official’s interpretation. Then we get to pre-game. When one guy in a crew calls it one way and another guy calls it another, now we have chaos on the court.

I think it makes sense, even though it was startling to hear at first. A forearm can be interpreted as a setup for a shove or push. Hands may or may not, especially in the low post.

It’s very, very, very, very GRAY AREA. I don’t think there’s a pure science to officiating, though some might say robots would do better. It’s part science, part art. And part reflexes. I’ve seen officials lose their reaction time over the years, and that’s unfortunate. Happens to all of us. Father Time is undefeated!