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PAC-12 MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYOctober 21, 2016Bobby DiblerSan Francisco, California BOBBY DIBLER: My name's Bobby Dibler. It's good to be with everybody. It seems like less than a year that we were here together. Before I get started on officiating, I just wanted to throw out a couple of our notices. A couple good things happened. We had two officials that worked the Final Four last year, John Higgins, who is out of Omaha, Nebraska. He's worked multiple Final Fours, and Tony Padilla who lives in Sacramento was selected to work his first Final Four last year. So kudos to those guys. I was really proud of them. In addition to that Dick Cartmell, who many of you have seen on the floor for many years was selected to Naismith Men's Basketball College Official of the Year for 2016. Quite an honor. Out West we went many, many years without having a recipient of that award. We had an individual who worked in the league, Scott Thornley back in about '08, '09 who received it. Randy McCall was honored with that award in 2011 or 2012. And Dick was selected this year. Of the four finalists, Vern Harris, one of our top officials was also one of the finalists for the award. And there is no question in my mind, he'll be a recipient in the future. Moving on to more important things with regards to what's relevant out west. The Big Sky conference became a member of the Western Officiating Consortium this past summer. Now we have all six Division 1 conferences in the West that are all part of the Consortium. What that really does is that really helps officiating. Painting it with a big paint brush, a wide paint brush relative to fall training, relative to in-season training there is now one consistent message that will go out to everybody who officiates out West. From an assignment standpoint, evaluating, observing things like that, it all kind of falls into place and makes a lot of sense. Again, what it does is it gives a platform for young, up-and-coming officials because what so many of these young guys need are more games and it gives them an opportunity to go out and officiate more basketball games. I just want to mention that all six are part of what we call the Western Officiating Consortium. This is a non-rule change year. And what that means is the Rules Committee cannot go in and change anything, but what they can do is take a look at the data and all the information they have on the previous year's changes, and then they can make what they call alterations. And something that didn't work or they weren't really happy with the way it came out, they can make some alterations. They get input from surveys, from officials, coordinators, coaches, through the agency, through the media, everybody has an opportunity to give them input so they've got good guidelines. In addition to that, one of the things they do in this off year is think about the rule changes for the following year, which will be a year from now. Having said that, we've got some directives that they've put out. And what we're trying to do across the country is we're trying to take the physicality out of our game. All of us that have been involved in a game for many years have all been part of letting our game get more physical over the last 15 to 20 years, and the Rules Committee finally said, okay, we've got to take the physicality out of the game. And you all have heard people say that scoring is down and some things like that. But we've got some directives on what we need to do as officials, as players, as coaches, to take the physicality. And there are directives now on six areas: Hand checking, body bumping, post-play screening, defending players without the ball, rebounding, and offense-created contact. Those are the directives that we've got in front of us. In addition to that, there will be special attention paid to post-play and in rebounding situations. So one of the good things about our game being officiated from maybe an advantage, disadvantage mentality, you need to kind of take that away, because that was no longer in the rule book. Incidental contact is in there, but not advantage, disadvantage. So particular attention is going to be given to post play and rebounding situations. The little jab, the little push to get a rebound that we think is quite incidental or maybe no one was really put at a disadvantage, the Rules Committee now wants those called fouls. In addition to that, special emphasis will be put on traveling. We're missing traveling probably -- we have the data. We game grade every game, and we probably miss traveling more than any other play. I know that our percentages are very low. The two areas that we miss traveling a lot are post-play moves, the drop step and some things like that, and also you see the game now where offenses around threw somebody up for a three-point shot. And one of the things we need to remember is the first foot that touches the floor when you possess the ball is your pivot foot. So if a player, as an example, I'm going to try to demo this, catches the ball, possessed the ball, outside the arc, sets and resets to shoot the three, I just traveled because I possessed the ball with my right foot on the floor. I planted outside the arc, and I slid this one back, I've traveled. So we're going to try to do a better job in those situations. One of the things that the Rules Committee did a year ago, it took away the opportunity for coaches to call timeout during live ball situations. As you might imagine, that was not received very well by the coaches, and so I don't know if you want to give one of those back or what have you. Coaches now have the opportunity, and this is an exception, on a throw-in, to call a timeout prior to the ball being released. And that's anywhere around the four sides of the court. Not just the end lines. So what that says is if I'm late in the first half, and I haven't gotten a timeout, I may want a timeout in that situation. If I happen to have a timeout in my pocket late in a basketball game, and the possessions are running out because the clock's winding down on the throw-in prior to being released, I can call timeout as a coach. The restricted arc was put in for a number of reasons. One of the reasons it was put in there was to try to keep people from going in there and taking charges when they really weren't playing legal defense. And we had, you know, the first couple years we used it, it was a three-foot arc. We still had a number of crashes and some things there. So the Rules Committee moved the arc out to a four-foot arc and hoping to kind of relieve some of the congestion and the contact that happens in there. But what was troubling to me was the secondary defender gets in there and gets legal, and everything and anything that he does, we come out with a block. And you all know we've seen block after block. So one of the adjustments and alterations now is if the secondary defender gets in, establishes initial legal guarding position, and he jumps straight in the air with his hands straight up to take to block the shot, then we're going to be refereeing that play as though the arc wasn't there. It will be a normal basketball play, just as if we had it outside the arc. So if I jump, attempt the block, the official then has to make a decision in doing that, did I foul him? Did maybe the offense charge the defender? We've got to rule it, and we'll be judging it as just a normal basketball play. If the secondary defender does the littlest things and stands, it's going to be a block. So you'll probably see a lot of players do a lot of jumping this year in going on with what this rule is. So that just kind of reviews what I just said. He jumps straight up and is vertical. In his space, that's a legal play. Provided he doesn't reach in quickly or anything like that on the shot. The word verticality back in my officiating days was a new word. It was invented by the secondary editor named Dr. Ed Steitz, and it became a word that's now in our dictionary. And what the Rules Committee have done to try to help us is they've come up with the word cylinder. So if you think of verticality, which is my space, think of the word cylinder which is a cylinder around my body, and what takes place to give me my cylinder is kind of my rear end, a normal stance, shoulder width, and as long as my elbows are bent, I'm in my cylinder. So how we're going to be officiating this play and adjudicating this play is we're going to have to make a determination now has the defense violated the offensive player's space? Because by interpretation now, the defensive player has got to allow the offensive player room to make a basketball play. So the days of hearing the word like balling up, get up in his grill, all of those are still okay until there's contact. And if a defensive guy is in the offensive player's space, more times than not, that foul's going to be on the defender. Having said that, the defender also has his space. So if he's given ground and letting him make a normal basketball play, which is dribbling, passing or shooting, then we could have a player controlled foul on the offensive player. But, again, what we're trying to do is we're trying to get the physicality out of the game. We're trying to get a game with a better flow. And we all know if we can get a game with a better flow, we're going to have a better game. That I believe does it for me. Oh, no, excuse me, elbow. Think about post play and what is going to be legal relative to what the offensive and defensive post players can do. And I'm going to demonstrate to you quickly that if I'm an offensive post player relative to elbows, and I get the ball and I hold it over my head with my elbows bent and my forearms vertical to the floor, I am legal. I'll show you kind of what I'm saying. I'm legal up high and I'm legal down low. But if my arms were bent and I am in this position to where my arms are horizontal to the floor then I'm suspect as an offensive player. So if that makes any sense to you. It's going to be a hard play. It's going to continue to be a hard play. But those are just some guidelines relative to trying to help us officiate that play, trying to help the players understand how to execute that play and trying to help the coaches understand how to coach that play. Now what has to happen is the defensive post player has got to very quickly be able to move his feet, create some space, and then adjust to go back into a normal guarding position. Because the interpretation is you've got to be able to let the player begin a normal basketball play, which, as we know, can be a move to the basket very quickly. So it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard on the defenders, but I believe these kids are going to do it. They're going to adjust. They're going to create some space in there that's going to not put a foul on the defender. At the same time, it's still going to let him enable him to go out there and defend by reestablishing very quickly. Like I said, no changes, just some alterations, trying to get the physicality out of our game. You all are probably going to see some calls this year, particularly early in the season. You're going to say what was that all about? Well, if you go back and look at it, you'll see it's going to fall under one of these directives that we've been given to get physicality out of the game. Having said that, it's just about lunchtime, but I'll entertain any questions anybody has? Q. Is reduced physicality designed to improve flow, but might that cause a massive spike in foul calls that would hurt the flow of the game? BOBBY DIBLER: You know, a year ago we had a number of rule changes that we thought oh, man, it's going to be a free-throw contest. And everybody was a little apprehensive relative to that. But what we found out in conference play, because we track all of that information, is that throughout conference play in the Pac-12, our number of fouls called a year ago was about one and a half more than the previous year. Which tells me one thing, the players adjusted. They want to play. They don't want to sit, and they will adjust. I don't believe there is any question about it. It may take a little while, but if the rules are enforced the way we're instructed to do it, I don't think we're going to have a lot more fouls. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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