Game Log 1/24/2008: Varsity debut 'round here

JV and Varsity girls' games tonight. Both were blowouts. I had high quality partners, which was nice (that, and not the quality of play, is the best aspect about doing varsity versus JV games).

On the whole, they were fine. Call selection was mostly good, and partners, both very good and very experienced, were complimentary. So I won't get down. But I did make two mistakes in the JV game that I'd like back.

--Mistake The First: Called a team-control foul before the ball was in-bounded. About a half a second after I called it, I knew it wasn't right, but I stuck to it. Partner said he knew I was wrong, but he didn't correct me because he "didn't want to run all the way down there." Fair enough for late in a JV game. Still, this was freakin' unforgivable. And I've been through it before, so I should have known better. (The title of that link is kinda sadly ironic given that I bungled it today.) Main culprit: I'm going too damn fast. "Team Control" was out of my mouth before it should have been. Oh well...nobody noticed.

--Mistake The Second: This one was weirder and more forgivable, but I still should have gotten it right. White was shooting free throws. Green violated by running down to a position in the blocks after White's shooter had the ball. I held out my fist, and said to myself what I say: "if she misses, I blow the whistle...if she misses, I blow the whistle." She missed, and I blew the whistle.

The problem was, she missed with an air ball.

Instead of taking a second to realize "Wait, that's a shooter violation, so it's a double violation...we need to go to the arrow," I gave my pre-rehearsed speech of "Violation, Green 23, we're shooting ONE." I sold it, and my partners went along with it, although all three of us realized about a minute or two later that we had it wrong.

Incredibly, about 10 minutes later, the exact same thing happened at the other end of the floor...lane violation on the defense, then shooter violation. My partner, even though he knew it was wrong, gave her one shot again--same mistake I made. That's a damn nice partner.

I adjusted to the three-man game fairly quickly. I probably could have rotated more, and I called a couple across the key as lead (Bad ref! Bad lead!), but a little rust and readjustment are acceptable.

Crap, though. This may be my only 3-man game of the year. But at least they noticed me and got me a varsity contest. And I did well enough (all of the mistakes were in the JV game...the varsity game was smooth) that they'll assign me more.

GOOD: Call selection, adjustment back to 3-man
WORK ON: Slow down, get the damn rule right by slowing down, don't call across key as lead
NEXT: Freshman boys tomorrow.