The "Crap" Radar Is In Full Effect

Somewhat out of the blue, I had a career night during my adult league basketball game last night:

Career Night On The Court

While scoring 23 points was fun, the game that followed was equally interesting for officiating reasons.   As I had nothing to do after my game, I stuck around to watch the nightcap.  Even though I wasn't needed to officiate, it's pretty typical for me to stick around.   I ended up chatting with various other players and some of the fans who I knew as well.

However, the thing that stuck out about the second game was the intensity and the amount of non-basketball activity ("crap") that occurred.  This particular league is usually pretty low key.  Sure there will be some intense moments but usually it's not a big deal.

However, emotions were running high and there were some tense moments between players from both teams.  The officials that work these games are just players from other teams so their experience level isn't that high.   They probably could have handled things a little better but overall it was fine.  In fact, since I'd been working on game management, I advised the officials on some things to watch out for and said double fouls or technicals should be used if needed.

As for me, as I observed these incidents, the stuff that my partner told me a couple of weeks ago really sunk in.   In the past few weeks, my "crap" radar is really in full effect.  When I see non-basketball plays (trash talking, pushing, elbows, etc), it immediately raises a red flag in my mind.

While I couldn't directly do anything about the situations yesterday, I took note that they occurred and thought about what I would have done.  Tomorrow night, I'll be back officiating a few adult league games and I plan to have my "crap" radar once again in full effect.  I want to see how my game management and awareness has improved in the past few weeks.