While myself and my best friend were waiting for my now State Champion Mariners to take the court on Saturday , we had the pleasure of talking to a couple of guys who were in town for the games and who introduced themselves as H.S. Basketball Officials . It was my thought that they were there to observe the officiating crew although they didn't really say that . They left after the WS Prep/Riverside girls game and we were all in agreement that it was an obvious mismatch , skewed by the open enrollment in Forsyth and unfair to Riverside . I tried to get them to stay to watch the boys game but they had to attend another game and honestly I think they were expecting the same thing in the boys game .
I found several interesting and very telling admissions about their candid comments to me. One man said the officials also discuss the WS Prep / Forsyth County advantage of open enrollment and all agree it exists, but when asked how do we go about fixing it , just shrugged his shoulders and said " it is what it is " .
One guy told me he was originally from New York City and that there teams who are allowed special considerations like the charter magnet does here are required to play up two divisions . A team could schedule however they want for out of conference games but for conference affiliation and city and state playoffs ( New York City apparently has their own affiliation) if they want to play against public H.S.'s they are required to play up two divisions.
We also asked about the star recruit phenomenon we have witnessed so many times in our conference with Bam Bam Adebayou . We asked if the Refs are conscious of the star recruits and are they likely to look off a foul on a guy like that and he admitted that the Refs are conscious of that star recruit and that they will discuss a player like that's fouls and the impact it makes on that star if they foul out . He said Refs often try to keep the number of fouls even . He also said Officials of various regions instruct their Refs to emphasize calling certain fouls and look off others . I felt the Refs in the championship game, after calling a charge on our PG on our first offensive possession , looked off several charges and called blocks on some that I thought were obvious charges. They allowed a lot of pushing from Prep and even though the fouls were skewed in the second half in our favor Prep stayed in the game by holding us . The Ref finally called it in the last minute after letting it go the whole game . The biggest revelation that I took from our conversation was the fact that Refs tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the star recruit and that officials discuss the Forsyth County situation but shrug their shoulders instead of fixing the problem.
I found several interesting and very telling admissions about their candid comments to me. One man said the officials also discuss the WS Prep / Forsyth County advantage of open enrollment and all agree it exists, but when asked how do we go about fixing it , just shrugged his shoulders and said " it is what it is " .
One guy told me he was originally from New York City and that there teams who are allowed special considerations like the charter magnet does here are required to play up two divisions . A team could schedule however they want for out of conference games but for conference affiliation and city and state playoffs ( New York City apparently has their own affiliation) if they want to play against public H.S.'s they are required to play up two divisions.
We also asked about the star recruit phenomenon we have witnessed so many times in our conference with Bam Bam Adebayou . We asked if the Refs are conscious of the star recruits and are they likely to look off a foul on a guy like that and he admitted that the Refs are conscious of that star recruit and that they will discuss a player like that's fouls and the impact it makes on that star if they foul out . He said Refs often try to keep the number of fouls even . He also said Officials of various regions instruct their Refs to emphasize calling certain fouls and look off others . I felt the Refs in the championship game, after calling a charge on our PG on our first offensive possession , looked off several charges and called blocks on some that I thought were obvious charges. They allowed a lot of pushing from Prep and even though the fouls were skewed in the second half in our favor Prep stayed in the game by holding us . The Ref finally called it in the last minute after letting it go the whole game . The biggest revelation that I took from our conversation was the fact that Refs tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the star recruit and that officials discuss the Forsyth County situation but shrug their shoulders instead of fixing the problem.