Why Three Refs?

[Jedi]

Does anyone know why there are three refs when you get to a certain point in playoff basketball. Seems to me all they do is call more fouls and slow the game down.

 

[Old Bearkat]

You need at least one more to keep track of the seeing eye dogs.......

 

[freeagent]

Seriously, three refs are common in the larger classifications (4A and 5A for sure) as well as college and pro basketball.

Small schools and subvarsity levels use two refs primarily because of cost and availability of officials. As the tournaments progress, the three officials set becomes more common.

From what I understand there are actually fewer calls (fouls) in most three officials sets. Wags say that's because there are now two guys who can say that wasn't their part of the court ...

 

[Texman301]

This got me to thinking....I went back and looked at my books over the last three years and noticed that when we played games where 3 man crews officiated, there were 2 x's as many fouls called with 3 man than 2 man crews! Just my observation.

 

[Dogface]

Actually,
that sounds very logical.
Another pair of eyes,
can see more infractions.
It's not that there are fewer fouls in a game with a 2-man crew.

 

[Jedi]

Well the game I saw last night had three refs one team had 1 player foul out and the other team had two foul out. Alot of the players had four fouls. Just thought it was odd that they played with two all season and then they go to three.

 

[rainjacktx]

When the Paducah boys came to Valley to play in the last district game of the season, there were three refs. One kid fouled out with about 2 minutes to play.

But I didn't really notice a difference in the number of fouls called. Perhaps it has something to do with a team's style of play. More aggressive, pressing teams are have a lot of fouls regardless of how many officials are on the court.

 

[Texman301]

agreed with rainjack! We play very uptempo and in your face man 2 man defense, more fouls are going to get called. In my experience that style of play, which is what I teach, 3 refs are ging to call more fouls because more get seen!