February 9, 2017
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Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
I don’t want to write about the Super Bowl. Honestly, I am jealous of the Patriots. They win all the time. Their division stinks. They overcame Roger Goodell, while the Saints were utterly defeated by ole Roger.
As a Saints fan, I am supposed to feel joy by the manner in which the Falcons lost, but I don’t. I guess I am getting old and soft. So, I give you permission to skip the rest of this article if you are looking for a Super Bowl recap.
If you have followed this column for a while, you might be wondering when I am going to write about LSU basketball. Sorry, once again, I don’t feel like it. But, college basketball has had a very interesting two weeks.
A couple of weeks ago #1, #2, and #4 lost on the same night. Last Saturday, #2 #3, #5 and #7-9 lost. So what is going on in college basketball? The three point shot.
First, let me establish that I am not complaining. I enjoy the three point shot and teams that utilize it are doing a great job. But, by the nature of the shot there is a larger range of possibilities.
Have you ever heard an announcer say, “That was a four point swing,” after one team misses a layup on one end and the other team dunks on the other end? With the three point shot, there are regular six point swings. One team misses a wide open three and the other team hits one in transition.
The three point shot is surging. Last year it accounted for 35% of the shots in college basketball whereas it was 32% of the shots in 2013. In 2015, the average was 18 attempts a game with about 6 made threes a game. In 2016, though, teams averaged 20.5 attempts, and over 7 makes. Realize that these numbers are taking every team into account so it is statistically hard to move averages when so many teams are taken into account. These are significant changes.
I think Florida is an excellent case study. Florida shoots 36% from three point range on the year and the three point shot accounts for 36% of their total shots. Two weeks ago, the Gators were coming off two losses to South Carolina and Vanderbilt where they shot a combined 18% (8/44) from three point range (they were 0/18 against Carolina).
Then Florida came to Baton Rouge. See, I am writing about LSU basketball. Over the next four games (all wins), the Gators are 48/108 from three for an average of 44.4%!!! As a result, they scored over 100 at LSU and beat Kentucky by 22 at home.
Of course there are other factors involved in these upsets. But, the reliance on the three point shot is huge. If one team goes 10/25 while the other team is 5/25, then it is a difference of 15 points! It is simply the nature of the beast, and in a 30 game season, it stands to reason that a team can be very cold one night and hot another (see Florida).
In football language, we are talking about teams being able to run the football versus teams that pass 50 times a game. Both can be effective, but the team that can run is usually more consistent.
In basketball, inside scoring is like running the football. Of course, we know that players that score inside with their back to the basket are almost extinct. As are voracious offensive rebounders like Chris Porter at Auburn in the late 90s (two points for you if you know who I am talking about without Google). The number of players that can make threes from everywhere vastly outnumber the inside players that offensive rebound like their life depended on it or that can score with their back to the basket.
College teams are “all in” for the three point shot. They “live and die” by the three. Of course, the three point shot is “the great equalizer.” I reached my cliché quota, and my point is valid. The three point shot is great!
HEY REF
Once again I’ve been asked to reprint a past column and I must apologize to those officials for taking so long in granting their wish. The column they asked to read again is actually a special three part series dealing with what else, high school football officials in Louisiana. I won’t edit any part of the three columns and instead will ask those coaches, officials, fans, parents and the powers that be at the LHSAA to send me their honest thoughts as to how they feel I’ve addressed the subject and if things have either gotten better or worse. I’d also like for anyone to send in your thoughts about the quality of the officials they see on any given Friday night in the Baton Rouge area. So, without further delay let’s get right to it as this is the first part of a previously printed three part edition of “Hey Ref”.
I never thought I’d use the words football officials and cannibals in the same sentence. But that’s the easiest way to describe the attitude in at least three football official’s associations in the Baton Rouge area. I’ve been doing some fact finding the last four years into why the performance of LHSAA’s football officials has declined in recent years. It goes against every fiber of my being to be writing this story but this story must be told. There won’t be any fireworks or front page headlines to announce that I’ve decided to retire effective immediately but I’ve seen enough and am sick to see just how bad the officiating and the attitude of many officials has become in this part of the state.
I started working high school football games in the Baton Rouge area back in 1979. I took 1980 off and resumed my career in 1981. Back then we played under NCAA rules but in the mid to late 80’s Louisiana made the switch to National Federation (High School) rules. So we had to hit the books hard to insure we enforced penalties as prescribed in the high school rule book.
I worked games for 20 years before major health problems sidelined me. You know little things like several surgeries to both knees then a total knee replacement, a triple by-pass, four abdominal operations and the “Big One” where my lower spine collapsed and to fix things the doctors took bone out of my hip and spliced it into my lower back. I bring this up because I never expected to be able to call another game. I kept this information from many other officials since I didn’t want or need pity. The facts are that after one Friday night game I’m in bed for two to three days unable to walk and dealing with all the pain.
During my time off (almost twelve years) I would still talk to coaches in our area and tried to keep up with how teams were doing. I’m not sure of the exact time frame but things started changing for the worse as far as how football games were being officiated. Coaches would tell me about plays they had run on a given Friday night and how the officials ruled wondering if this or that was correct.
I don’t like to question how fellow officials enforced penalties or how they handled game situations just on a coaches version of the events but it became clear something was amiss. And it wasn’t just one coach or fan that would ask me questions so I decided to get back on the sidelines so I could see for myself just what was going on. Back at the start of my stint as an amateur football official there was this feeling of a brotherhood among a crew of officials working games together.
That was the first thing I noticed missing among the membership and in fact before I started back I called and talked to an official that was still calling games and has more than 40 years in the Baton Rouge Association. He told me “Things have CHANGED! Don’t ask questions just do your games and don’t worry about anything else but what you do”! That conversation only made me want to get back to see why things had changed for the worse.
I admit I was excited to have the chance to catch up with many of my old friends. But when the meeting got underway I was shocked in that I only recognized a handful of the guys I used to call games with. I didn’t make it through the first meeting back as I was asked to leave. The Baton Rouge Association was still meeting at LSU’s Williams Hall so I felt comfortable sitting in the seat I’d spent nearly 20 years occupying. It was close to the top row of the room’s seats and it felt like old times. But not more than twenty minutes into the meeting I’d noticed many officials talking on their phones, in small groups and some were even playing games on their laptops and cell phones. I noticed a couple guys with laptops never looked up and just continued being focused on the screens. So I walked by them to get a peek at what was so important and I was shocked to see them on the internet as the meeting continued onto new business. It was like being in a bad daycare center with all the noise and inattention to the discussion on the floor.
Well, I couldn’t hear because of all the talking, walking around, laughing and phones ringing so I raised my hand and asked what was being said on the floor. The president made the remark that if I wanted to hear what was going on and to “fix my problem then I should come sit on the front row”. This upset me and I stood up and told him to “Fix this problem everybody needs to shut the F*CK up so we can hear”!
When I got home I had more than a dozen calls on my answering machine from members thanking me for saying what I said because it’s just mass confusion at the meetings and I said what needed saying. Well, it didn’t go over very well with the president and I was almost immediately put on his sh*t list.
And from there things only got worse. I was used to meetings where you could hear a pin drop. Every meeting had a purpose in that before the rules test we opened the rule book and discussed what they meant and how to enforce penalties. We had a study guide with over 300 questions and we’d go over the first 50 questions then the next week another 50 and so on until we’d read all the questions and understood what they meant.
The new way of doing things is handing out the study guide along with the dates that the test would be given. When no discussion on the rules happened I wanted to devote a minimum of 30 minutes before the test to our study guide and the rules then after the test the 30 minutes would be to review game situations from the previous Friday night. Needless to say, it wasn’t received very well and was turned down. I asked one of the veteran officials if he’d support my motion and he told me “Man, you know the real meeting is after we leave here (LSU) in the parking lot or at a local “watering hole”. You can see that this was not the way I was taught but I ran up against so much resistance that I knew nothing good was to come from doing business this way.
I’ll leave things to your imagination as to just how good the product would be if this was “NEW” way of learning the rules.
Till next week… …
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