AllSports, can you explain how officials are taught to call rebounding position/fouls... aka the "over the back" call?
I know you asked AllSports personally - so you can take this FWIW or ignore it.
I think you nail it in your phrasing of the 1st part of the sentence - 'rebounding position' being your specific wording. 'Over the back' is a common phrase, but doesn't really describe anything that is a foul - nor is it mentioned in the rules...nor is there even a mechanic (signal) for it. Our mechanics are pretty simple regarding contact fouls - there are only five that describe specific contact, and three of those involve the hands (holding; illegal use of; hand check). The other two signals are: blocking and pushing or charging.
I look for displacement and/or contact that is beyond incidental. Usually the Trail or the Center (in 3-man) are looking for this type of contact, but any official can call it if he/she sees it, obviously.
Rule 4-37 addresses rebounding. The simplest of the philosophy is what is mentioned last -
"Every player is entitled to a spot on the playing court, provided the player gets there first without illegally contacting an opponent." The specific infraction regarding positioning is described as
"To obtain or maintain legal rebounding position, a player may not: Displace, charge or push an opponent."
If a player is tall enough and talented enough to reach over a shorter player and pick the ball 'clean'? There is no infraction. That said, if the shorter player reaches up or jumps up into the outstretched arms of an opponent reaching over them and contact occurs? The opponent is guilty of violating the principle of verticality. I signal that as being illegal use of hands. If a player displaces an opponent with their body - regardless of whether it's from the front or back - I simply call it pushing. Too many coaches seem to believe their player is allowed to push a player by backing them out away from the basket and think it's 'boxing out'. It's not - it's a push foul.
Now - in girls BB especially, the challenge for we officials becomes the issue of spacing. I'm not entirely sure if it's a coaching issue - but girls teams, more so than boys teams
in general - seem to lose track of spacing during rebounding. They get wayyyy too 'inside' for a legit shot at a rebound. It's often the case where you'll have 6-7 players inside the 3-ft radius from the center of the hoop.
Two things occur - both of which are not good. One - with all those bodies in such a tight cluster, contact is bound to occur. Such incidental contact doesn't necessarily mean A FOUL AUTOMATICALLY OCCURRED. Many times they're all legally jumping and maintaining verticality, but are clanging into each other simply because there are too many bodies in too small a radius. The second thing that's bad is - rebounds seldom 'fall' so close to the basket. Often they bounce further out - to maybe that 5-8 ft 'sweet spot' away from the center of the basket radius...so they all end up literally diving out to attempt to snag a loose ball near the floor, and (natch) a lot of incidental contact occurs. It happens over and over and over again. Again - I'm not sure...but I suspect it's the principle of physics and spacing too few coaches address. There's little to be gained when 2 or 3 of your 5 players are clustered so tightly around the center of the basket.
Sorry for being long winded - but this is a fairly common philosophy of the baskeball officials I work with...the vast majority of us being Varsity '1's. I hope you find it to be helpful.