Game log 2/2/2010: Hard foul=good for the game?

Girls and boys' small-school varsity tonight. Two very strong partners--and I got to be the R.

Neither game was good. The girls' game was never close and wound up being a 10-point spread. The boys' game was pretty miserable--White won by 60.

The first game was pretty calm...not a lot of fouls to call. I don't remember reaching the bonus for either team in either half. What I remember is a minor struggle with the last shot mechanic. We'd somehow left it out of the pregame, so when the clock ran down, we had to communciate pretty demonstratively about who had the clock. (It was whoever was facing that direction.) Also a pretty weird coach complaint late. He said he heard a slap and how could I miss it. I honestly didn't know what he was talking about, but I was lead and away from the shot. I wish I'd said that, but instead I just said I didn't know what he was referring to, but if I'd seen what he was describing, I'd have called it. After the game, my partners said they both had it...the slap was hand-on-ball. I was able to say that to the coach before the boys' game. I'm glad I got a second chance at that conference.

The boys' game was a complete mismatch. I got the sense the losing team might get frustrated, and said as much at haltime. In fact, I said I was worried we were already passing on some stuff against the losing team that we probably shouldn't. We were able to go out and get a few early, but a very hard foul actually turned the tide in this game's manageability. The winning team was on yet another fast break, and I was lead. Loser came and chased down winner as winner shot his layup, and gave him a pretty hard body-to-body contact--and arm-to-arm too. Now, this particular gym has very little room behind the hoop, so the fouled player (who made the hoop) wound up banging into the base of the wall. I immediately came up with an intentional foul (my first this season).

Partner was the star of this show, though. The foul-er was high-fiving his teammates for what he thought was his strong physical play. Partner simply approached him and pointed at the hurt player under the basket. The fouler didn't know the kid was hurt, and he immediately felt really bad.

Physical play cleaned up a lot after that. In a crazy way, the hard foul and the hurt kid (who I suspect will be okay) was very good for the game. It calmed everybody down, and we were able to cruse through the final quarter with almost no foul calls at all.

THINGS I DID WELL: Positioning, partner communication
THINGS TO WORK ON: Coach communication, got too close to a play or two
NEXT UP: Evenly matched middle-of-the-pack girls JV/Varsity on Thursday. My season is actually coming to an end in a hurry--work commitments limit me to Thursdays hereafter, so I've got games on the next three Thursdays...and then I'm through.