Officiating Differences Girls v Boys

C

CasualFan24

Well-known member
Seems the last couple years, there have been complaints on the girls and boys games being called differently. How do we want to see these games called?

More called fouls in the boys games?
Less called fouls in the girls games?
More called violations in the girls games?

Seems there is a wide range of opinions....air them out here - I'm sure there will be plently of feedback from officials as well!
 
 
I'll start it off - I absolutely think the girls game need to be officiated differently than the boys game. I think every game girls or boys is different, and they should all be called individually however, in general, the boys can play through more contact than girls can. Much of it is optics, marginal contact in a girls game LOOKS much worse than marginal contact in a boys game.

Also - there is a lot more parity in the boys game. Which means the overall skill set of the players is not as broad as it is in the girls game. Evidence? Look at some sectional scores from this past week. I looked at D2 Northeast districts only.....scores of 90-9, 75-5, 88-7, 78-9. Average score from 25 sectional games was 62-25. 37 POINT DIFFERENTIAL! This alone tells me, these games need to be officiated differently....
 
I agee 100% that there is much less parity in the girls game. I don't know about officiating game to game but I'd be all for a different/earlier threshold for mercy rule in girls games.
 
GMC_Leader_10 said:
IMO…. Basketball is basketball, a foul is a foul and a mercy rule is a mercy rule. All regardless of what sex is on the floor.
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Also - just pointing this out. College officials, they either officiate the women's game or the men's game. They don't intertwine - why do you think that is?
 
CasualFan24 said:
Interesting take. So are officials not calling enough fouls in boys games or too many fouls in girls games?
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I don’t think there is a preset number of fouls that should or shouldn’t be called in either boys or girls games. Each foul has a definition and the definitions don’t change based off if it’s a girls game or boys game. I don’t know what the statistics of fouls called in boys games vs girls games looks like but again, a foul is a foul so I would expect a referee to call a foul when the definition of a foul presents itself. In a perfect world, refs would call everything by the book, would never look up at the scoreboard, and wouldn’t display any emotion… like a robot😂
CasualFan24 said:
Also - just pointing this out. College officials, they either officiate the women's game or the men's game. They don't intertwine - why do you think that is?
Click to expand...
I think this has more to do with the assigners and not the individual referees but regardless is a great questions. Could it be because there are more high schools than colleges and therefore we need more refs to be open boys + girls rather than just one?
 
In an effort to clean up the game, the NFHS and the Ohsaa adopted rules to allow for a more free flowing game! Good in theory for girls basketball, absolutely not happening in real games. This is from the southeast district, but illegal body contact from defenders on dribbling and cuts to the basket is determined by who is the strongest, not who has the legal lane to go through. Too many times I watch girls get even or just past the defenders hip, only to be shoved feet off their line by physical contact with lower body and hand checks. The 2 hand rule might as well not exist, as you can ask for it called, only for officials to say, coach, she was just putting hands out to FEEL where she is! The rule doesn't say 2 hands with force! The stronger girls get by with physically manhandling ballhandlers who beat them off the dribble. Then, when the smaller player plants and rises to shoot, the contact while shooting, especially lower body contact is not called! I had a girl last season who was 5'9" and had a 26 inch veritcal, even off the pull up jumper. You would watch defenders put their hands on her hip and displace her, causing her to focus on not losing her balance instead finishing the shot. I could not get officials to call it. I finally took a technical saying, if you refs could have jumped in your day you might understand why contact to the lower body while jumping is a foul! Physical play by post players is another, legal guarding position from defense, offensive player just shoulder checks defender back clearing space and then shooting! Several things need fixed!
 
CasualFan24 said:
Also - just pointing this out. College officials, they either officiate the women's game or the men's game. They don't intertwine - why do you think that is?
Click to expand...

Men's college has a different rule book than women's college. Is likely a primary driver. Plus, the payment difference is pretty significant (22% according to a report from 2021-2022)

In High School, the rule book is the same outside of playing ball size. The pay is the same for boys vs girls in the same league. Pay differences are by school or league.
 
GMC_Leader_10 said:
I don’t think there is a preset number of fouls that should or shouldn’t be called in either boys or girls games. Each foul has a definition and the definitions don’t change based off if it’s a girls game or boys game. I don’t know what the statistics of fouls called in boys games vs girls games looks like but again, a foul is a foul so I would expect a referee to call a foul when the definition of a foul presents itself. In a perfect world, refs would call everything by the book, would never look up at the scoreboard, and wouldn’t display any emotion… like a robot😂
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There lies the problem. As I mentioned on the Ask the Ref page - basketball is a contact sport. There is contact on every single play. Determining what is consider illegal contact a lot of times is dependent on what happens after the contact occurs. Contact that happens in a boys game that is viewed as marginal and not even recognized because they boys just continue to play. That same contact in a girls game LOOKS much worse because often times contact causes a fall to the ground, or a loss of possession.

There is no black and white foul - it's all based on judgement. Officials try their best to base fouls on one question "Is there an advantage/disadvantage gained?" If yes, blow the whistle. If no, play on...
 
eagles73 said:
In an effort to clean up the game, the NFHS and the Ohsaa adopted rules to allow for a more free flowing game! Good in theory for girls basketball, absolutely not happening in real games. This is from the southeast district, but illegal body contact from defenders on dribbling and cuts to the basket is determined by who is the strongest, not who has the legal lane to go through. Too many times I watch girls get even or just past the defenders hip, only to be shoved feet off their line by physical contact with lower body and hand checks. The 2 hand rule might as well not exist, as you can ask for it called, only for officials to say, coach, she was just putting hands out to FEEL where she is! The rule doesn't say 2 hands with force! The stronger girls get by with physically manhandling ballhandlers who beat them off the dribble. Then, when the smaller player plants and rises to shoot, the contact while shooting, especially lower body contact is not called! I had a girl last season who was 5'9" and had a 26 inch veritcal, even off the pull up jumper. You would watch defenders put their hands on her hip and displace her, causing her to focus on not losing her balance instead finishing the shot. I could not get officials to call it. I finally took a technical saying, if you refs could have jumped in your day you might understand why contact to the lower body while jumping is a foul! Physical play by post players is another, legal guarding position from defense, offensive player just shoulder checks defender back clearing space and then shooting! Several things need fixed!
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I understand your frustration with handchecking but I have a question for you. It seems as though you are a coach - in those games, did your team play defense with their hands? Did they also play physical? Were the games consistently called the same for both teams?

I'm guessing that the officials didn't just penalize your best player when she was on offense, I'm betting she was then able to play just as physical defense on the other end of the floor, no?

In reality - you will be hard pressed to find an official that likes/liked the hand check point of emphasis that was implemented several years ago. If the handchecks were enforced based on the rule - you'd have a whistle on every single possession of the game. Don't tell me players adjust, by rule, every single drive is going to be a foul if we enforce handchecks by the book. Teams will be in foul trouble all game, the best players will be sitting, and the games will take forever.

It's interesting that clearly many people on here, want officials to call more fouls on contact, when the biggest complaint from coaches in the girls game recently has been "you'd never call that in a boys game"
 
GMC_Leader_10 said:
I don’t think there is a preset number of fouls that should or shouldn’t be called in either boys or girls games. Each foul has a definition and the definitions don’t change based off if it’s a girls game or boys game. I don’t know what the statistics of fouls called in boys games vs girls games looks like but again, a foul is a foul so I would expect a referee to call a foul when the definition of a foul presents itself. In a perfect world, refs would call everything by the book, would never look up at the scoreboard, and wouldn’t display any emotion… like a robot😂

I think this has more to do with the assigners and not the individual referees but regardless is a great questions. Could it be because there are more high schools than colleges and therefore we need more refs to be open boys + girls rather than just one?
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There are equally less college officials to the number of college teams. Has nothing to do with why they don't intermingle women's/men's games.

It's because there are different rules in the girls game than there are in the men's game. Beyond the rules themselves, the assignors want the games called a certain way and the games are played too differently to be consistently called if you were to officiate both.
 
BigDawg40 said:
Men's college has a different rule book than women's college.
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Yes!
BigDawg40 said:
Men's college has a different rule book than women's college. Is likely a primary driver. Plus, the payment difference is pretty significant (22% according to a report from 2021-2022)
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Has nothing to do with why officials only do one or the other - if this was the case, why wouldn't officials only want to do the men's game?
BigDawg40 said:
Men's college has a different rule book than women's college. Is likely a primary driver. Plus, the payment difference is pretty significant (22% according to a report from 2021-2022)

In High School, the rule book is the same outside of playing ball size. The pay is the same for boys vs girls in the same league. Pay differences are by school or league.
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Pay has nothing to do with how games are called. It does have something to do with the quality of official though.
 
GMC_Leader_10 said:
I don’t know what the statistics of fouls called in boys games vs girls games looks like but again,
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I took a second to look up the stats for this year in your (assuming from your screen name) conference

Boys average fouls per game per team -- 13.5
Girls average fouls per game per team -- 12.5
GMC_Leader_10 said:
a foul is a foul so I would expect a referee to call a foul when the definition of a foul presents itself.
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Rule Book definition of a foul...... ( I bolded the parts that we get paid to determine)

"A personal foul is a player foul which involves illegal contact with an opponent while the ball is live, which hinders an opponent from performing normal defensive and offensive movements. A personal foul also involves contact by or on an airborne shooter when the ball is dead."
 
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CasualFan24 said:
In reality - you will be hard pressed to find an official that likes/liked the hand check point of emphasis that was implemented several years ago. If the handchecks were enforced based on the rule - you'd have a whistle on every single possession of the game. Don't tell me players adjust, by rule, every single drive is going to be a foul if we enforce handchecks by the book. Teams will be in foul trouble all game, the best players will be sitting, and the games will take forever.
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I know a group of officials that during the start of a scrimmage years ago demonstrated (the coaches knew what was coming) what it would like to be to call a game like some are screaming for on here.......

The parents and players lost their minds about two minutes in. It was a great "be careful what you wish for" lesson for those who lost their minds.....
 
CasualFan24 said:
I understand your frustration with handchecking but I have a question for you. It seems as though you are a coach - in those games, did your team play defense with their hands? Did they also play physical? Were the games consistently called the same for both teams?

I'm guessing that the officials didn't just penalize your best player when she was on offense, I'm betting she was then able to play just as physical defense on the other end of the floor, no?

In reality - you will be hard pressed to find an official that likes/liked the hand check point of emphasis that was implemented several years ago. If the handchecks were enforced based on the rule - you'd have a whistle on every single possession of the game. Don't tell me players adjust, by rule, every single drive is going to be a foul if we enforce handchecks by the book. Teams will be in foul trouble all game, the best players will be sitting, and the games will take forever.

It's interesting that clearly many people on here, want officials to call more fouls on contact, when the biggest complaint from coaches in the girls game recently has been "you'd never call that in a boys game"
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I coach my players to get in legal guarding position and then use force to hold their ground and wall up. Yes, I know my kids still will use hands, but we coach not to. The difference in boys and girls is strength disparity can be a HUGE gap between girls and boys. This difference is what gets me, your comment about the hand checking not being liked by refs, is only the second person to tell me that, the other is a retired official! lol As for not adjusting, your basically giving carte blanche to those who play basketball like football, and nothing will fix it until officials start handing out fouls for it!

Refs dont get to pick and choose what rules they like and enforce them with that mentality, but they do. Meaning, you have several thousand different opinions and calls going on during the course of the season.
 
eagles73 said:
Meaning, you have several thousand different opinions and calls going on during the course of the season.
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Just as there are several thousand different opinions from fans and coaches regarding the accuracy of the officials' judgement.

The games are officiated differently because they are played differently. (again, see the definition of a personal foul)
 
AllSports12 said:
I know a group of officials that during the start of a scrimmage years ago demonstrated (the coaches knew what was coming) what it would like to be to call a game like some are screaming for on here.......

The parents and players lost their minds about two minutes in. It was a great "be careful what you wish for" lesson for those who lost their minds.....
Click to expand...
There is an official in my area that tries to call games this way. She calls more hand checks than anyone I've ever seen - the games are absolutely miserable.
 
AllSports12 said:
I know a group of officials that during the start of a scrimmage years ago demonstrated (the coaches knew what was coming) what it would like to be to call a game like some are screaming for on here.......

The parents and players lost their minds about two minutes in. It was a great "be careful what you wish for" lesson for those who lost their minds.....
Click to expand...
We don’t do our jobs at the whims of the fans, if so, I wouldn’t coach
 
CasualFan24 said:
Seems the last couple years, there have been complaints on the girls and boys games being called differently. How do we want to see these games called?

More called fouls in the boys games?
Less called fouls in the girls games?
More called violations in the girls games?

Seems there is a wide range of opinions....air them out here - I'm sure there will be plently of feedback from officials as well!
Click to expand...

No more fouls called in boys’ games. Ticky tack touch fouls belong in grade school games. More foul calls disrupt the game. I’m not advocating a brawl, just keep it as is.
 
Many coaches are starting to teach '1 hand on the hip' in boys and girls. The refs are allowing it. Huge advantage for defenders. The counter....you teach your kids to drive their forearm through their wrist and you look for pump fake opportunities in the paint to take your head through chins.
 
eagles73 said:
If the rest of officials called it, the game wouldn’t be
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No - it would be even worse. Do you know how many fouls would be called in a game like that? You are asking for a game where touch fouls are being called on every possession. That's what you want to watch? 2 hands at any time, foul. 1 hand then removed and 1 hand again, bang - foul. You want this to be soccer on the basketball court - a defense playing without being able to use they hands at all is not basketball.
 
realball4468 said:
Many coaches are starting to teach '1 hand on the hip' in boys and girls. The refs are allowing it. Huge advantage for defenders. The counter....you teach your kids to drive their forearm through their wrist and you look for pump fake opportunities in the paint to take your head through chins.
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If the one hand turns into a "ride" and ends in displacement, it's a foul and that gets called pretty regularly in games. But 1 hand on the defender as a reset, or that is mostly being used just to show the offense that there is pressure and the defender isn't just going to give 3 feet of space is not a foul.
 
CasualFan24 said:
If the one hand turns into a "ride" and ends in displacement, it's a foul and that gets called pretty regularly in games. But 1 hand on the defender as a reset, or that is mostly being used just to show the offense that there is pressure and the defender isn't just going to give 3 feet of space is not a foul.
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Spacing hand is taught as a technique to teach defenders how to keep proper spacing...

1. To make the shooter think twice about shooting
2. A measuring stick to not get beat off the dribble
3. Easier to deflect a cross over dribble

If the offensive player takes your space on a dribble drive (you don't put your hand on their hip to recover regardless if there is displacement or not). It is a foul and bad defense. if you have your hand on my hip while I'm dribbling that means you can't move your feet fast enough to defend me (its the only way you can try and gain back the advantage that was taken).

Yes, if I have the ball on the wing and you touch my hip with your spacing hand to gauge your distance (not an issue), and I have the right to slap it away. You touch me, I have the right to touch you. Once I attack if you have to put your hand on my hip to recover...I won the war...your fouling to recover.
 
realball4468 said:
Spacing hand is taught as a technique to teach defenders how to keep proper spacing...

1. To make the shooter think twice about shooting
2. A measuring stick to not get beat off the dribble
3. Easier to deflect a cross over dribble

If the offensive player takes your space on a dribble drive (you don't put your hand on their hip to recover regardless if there is displacement or not). It is a foul and bad defense. if you have your hand on my hip while I'm dribbling that means you can't move your feet fast enough to defend me (its the only way you can try and gain back the advantage that was taken).

Yes, if I have the ball on the wing and you touch my hip with your spacing hand to gauge your distance (not an issue), and I have the right to slap it away. You touch me, I have the right to touch you. Once I attack if you have to put your hand on my hip to recover...I won the war...your fouling to recover.
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Ok - then if the driving player makes contact with a laterally moving defender who has established legal guarding position since prior to the drive -then the offense should get called for a foul if there is ANY contact to the body of the defender then right? Offense initiates just as much contact on a defender as a defender does on the offense throughout a game.

You want all contact to be called on drives to the basket. But again, not all contact is a foul. You flat out say "regardless if there is displacement or not".....so touching another player on a drive to the basket no matter what, is a foul?
 
realball4468 said:
Spacing hand is taught as a technique to teach defenders how to keep proper spacing...

1. To make the shooter think twice about shooting
2. A measuring stick to not get beat off the dribble
3. Easier to deflect a cross over dribble

If the offensive player takes your space on a dribble drive (you don't put your hand on their hip to recover regardless if there is displacement or not). It is a foul and bad defense. if you have your hand on my hip while I'm dribbling that means you can't move your feet fast enough to defend me (its the only way you can try and gain back the advantage that was taken).

Yes, if I have the ball on the wing and you touch my hip with your spacing hand to gauge your distance (not an issue), and I have the right to slap it away. You touch me, I have the right to touch you. Once I attack if you have to put your hand on my hip to recover...I won the war...your fouling to recover.
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If the hand on the hip is a hold, or a ride away from the driving lane to the basket - this is displacement and a foul. If the hand on the hip does not change the offenses direction or slow him/her in any way - there is no way this should be called a foul.
 
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