I agree that some of the games this year have been of average quality, unfortunatly I missed last nights game. After every single game regardless of outcome people on this forum constantly say that's the worst reffering they have ever seen. These guys are educated professionals, who are trained an taught, and evaluated by professionals who have more years experience that alot of people. I would love for the chance of some of these people who constantly bag the referees to sit down with one of them, watch it on tape then talk about why something was or wasn't called. Obviously it won't happen. I am for better refereeing standards but when every ref is bagged after every game, to me that seems like people don't actually know the rules as well as they do.

The call I think that needs to be looked at is the continuation Schenscher got! That was just terrible umpiring!

I'm not blaming the umpires for the loss but the ref with the shaved head was terrible - he should be demoted!

when 3 refs do not see the tallest guy on the court hit the ball out of court you know there is no hope.

The ref'ing could be summed up in one play. Schenscher arguing that his points should count before realising he had been called for a charge. A charge that was awarded to a defender standing inside the restricted area.

It cant be that hard to ref a game with consistency. It cant be that hard to call a game in such a way that players know when they have fouled.

Eddie Shannon like Winder before him was manhandled all night with only a call every now and then. The d did not adjust at all, the just kept doing the same thing. one minute they are penalised the next 5 minutes they are allowed to carry on.

Shocking umpiring, agree with Loco shockingly Haines was the better of the 3. One of them, the darker haired guy, waswoeful and seemed to want tomake a call every timeacroc drove in the key..though our defence on the penetration didnt help either.I also think Clarke needs to settle soon on an 8 man main rotation so guys get settledand know where their minutes are coming.NG was awesomelastnight, greatgame.

The ref'ing could be summed up in one play. Schenscher arguing that his points should count before realising he had been called for a charge. A charge that was awarded to a defender standing inside the restricted area.

"You must be joking, you are showing that you do not know the game - Luke showed how dumb a player he can be - clearly this was an offensive foul and the points were waived away by the ref and the defense was outside the circle"

Worst officiated game I have ever seen in my life. Both teams got absolutely screwed numerous times while Crosswell was allowed to do anything he wanted, and the second he was withing 2ft of a player he was fouled.
Honestly if the Ref's continue putting up spectacles like that this game will die very very quickly. Wish it was on TV so more ppl saw how bad these 3 were.

RHOM i am happy to go to the video but i am very sure that the defender had both feet inside the area.Schensch caught the ball on the line then made his move toward the basket. The defender was definitely in the area between where he caught the ball and the basket IMO. TWas a horrible call.

There are too many bad calls to go through.

What was the final foul count? I think I worked out it was > 1 foul per 30 seconds overall :S So quite literally every play.

I agree with most of the aboove

It seems to me they can't even get the basic calls correct.

Out of bounds of Big Luke, the continuation of play for Luke was just a disgrace. How could all three of them allow that to go through?

Here is a solution. Switch from 3 ref's to 2 ref's. There will be more funds to pay the two so hopefully hey can dedicate more time to improve their craft.

Switch to 2 refs! With the way the game is played today?! There would be some very ugly off ball play If that were to happen!

The frustration level last night was through the roof. I can live with a few wrong calls but its the consistency that kills me. Crosswell got about 6 Fts in a row on soft fouls going to the hoop, then as soon as he made the ft would absolutely mug Shannon.

Also it's the second game in a row where the refs have completely lost control. If that keeps happening we are going to see more hard fouls and a likely serious injury.

Well it wouldn't be a ref-bashing topic if I didn't participate. In the first half, while the game was over-called I still thought it was consistent. If anything, I thought the 50-50 calls went Adelaide's way. In general though, if refs are allowed to call a game the way they did in the second half then there will very quickly be no league, as no one wants to pay to watch that $hit. It really was not a physical game last night, so for 57 fouls to be called was a disgrace. Yes, many people come on here each week and say "that is the worst it has ever been", and the reason for this is that it is true. The standard of officiating in the league is pathetic, and it gets worse each week, each season. Watch a game from a decade ago and you barely even notice that there are refs out there.

Now queue Sebastian to come on here and stick up for them. Contrary to the popular and deluded way of thinking, a call is not correct just because a ref has made it. Lyons proved that.

Anon, by that lunatic rationale Luke Schenscher has played in the NBA, so the refs should show HIM some respect.

The reason the game was less of a spectacle sits firmly with the referees. The moment Crosswell came on was allowed to defend in the Gorgian method by continually being allowed to handcheck and hold his oponents the game detiorated as a spectacle.

I once sat behind Trevor Baker at a State League game that he was reviewing in his capacity of referee observor. He noted the positioning of the refs and made a notation about each call made. When I queried him he said that they went through each game with them and provide a critique. He said, in answer to my question about the missed and inconsistent calls, that they were not part of the post match discussion. He carries a clipboard and sits in the same seats on the southern side of the court each game, he also sat with the new referee coordinator a couple of games ago, so I assume he is still doing the same job. It goes some of the way to explaining why the stabdard of refereeing has remained static or to some extent deteriorated.

I used to robustly critisize Geoff Weeks, Michael Butler and John Beams from the sidelines but even on their worst night they were streets ahead of the current batch.

anon how the hell can you say poor play was the reason the refs were crap
Luke clearly hit the ball out of court and not one of the refs got the call right.

The continuation on Schensch should have been waived away as he pivoted and shot the ball AFTER the whistle went. 2 points and a free throw when it should have been no score and a side ball in a 2 point loss is telling.

The NBL is being let down by the lowest common denominator every week which is the abysmally inconsistent calls. If the refs were consistent then the players can adjust to the calls

They arent consistent and so that breeds confusion and frustration on court and in the stands.

Has preventative officiating gone from the game. As I watched Townsville foul count go up and up at the start of the game I knew this was turning into a call fest.

The fact that everyone knew who refereed the games means the fans heard from them too much.

The referees made that game about them. I wouldn't mind seeing Geoff Weeks as the evaluator. Geoff worried more about game management than the applying the rules. The fans, players and coaches loved that style of basketball.

An explanation for the amount of fouls could be that the refs are competing against each other to call the most amount of fouls and are given targets on how many fouls they should be calling per quarter, i definately know this happens in BigV, so i'm wondering if this happens at the NBL as well?

Ha ha BigD...... That is so ridiculously untrue that it is actually very funny!! I'm not going to even bother with that.

And the schensc continuation, it was noted that he pivoted and shot the ball after the whistle....... Since when does that mean that the basket is waived?? If anyone can reference the rule or interpretation that suggests it should have been waived away I'll be happy to read it........ Because it doesn't exist.

It's reasons like the above two examples that I have given, that I find the ref bashing intollerable..... Because all you experts who claim the refs are shit and my way of thinking is correct, are so very wrong.

Like I mentioned earlier I too am for good refereeing, and improving the standard, but pot shots with no back up irritate me.

my understanding of that rule is that the ref has to decide if the player was in the act of shooting so if Luke was pivoting and in his one,two step motion then the points should count.

It makes not difference if the ball was released after contact or after the whistle.

@Detroit
If it is so ridiculously untrue then why do refs for the BigV say that is the case???

Is this a BigV or NBL discussion? I have never hear of such a thing. Referees want to call less..... Not more!

Maybe ask your SEABL refs...

I am a ref and i am told to get a certain target and call as much as possible, and BigV refs get told the same thing, all i was doing is asking if this is a possibility with the massive amount of foul calls made. I do hope not and find it unlikely but you never know.

Gee I love how the Sixers lose a close game and the refs were the 'worst Ive ever seen'

Get used to it, play the whistle and concentrate on the things in the game you can actually control and odds are you will do a hell of a lot better.

To constantly hear this BS from an SA based forum just reinforces the widely help opinion that South Australians are the most one eyed whingers in the country.

and before anyone even says it, yes Im a South Australian but my goodness once you have lived out of the state you gain a new perspective on this sort of thing.

If you get told that BigD that is completley ridiculous. The refs don't want to be seen. I can promise you this doesn't happen at national level

"Gee I love how the Sixers lose a close game and the refs were the 'worst Ive ever seen'

Get used to it, play the whistle and concentrate on the things in the game you can actually control and odds are you will do a hell of a lot better. "

I think you would find that people are saying the overall referee'ing was freaking attrocious. I wouldnt blame the lose at all on the Ref's. How ever I would say that to have that many fouls that were entirely inconsistant and many appeared to be purely made up makes the entire game a spectacle I do not want to watch.
Infact scroll through the posts here you will notice hardly anyone blamed the game on the Ref's so perhaps your SA bashing just wanted to kick in after we kicked you out??

i didn't see this game, but watch 1 or 2 nbl games on tv a week, sounds like the game was over-officiated. expect more fo this as they try to save the game from what it has become... all i see is full court press bball slowing down the nbl. the refs need to start calling contact in the back-court and holds on players who have the ball. theyr'e creating a game where you dont have to play good defence, you just hold the player in front of you... wether he has the ball or not

I know that the league is sponsored by Centrebet, but should referees be allowed to bet?

That's a joke Joyce.

Always the refs fault? - You really did entirely miss the point. I've lived in many different countries and followed ball in all of them. Be constructive or please stop wasting bandwidth. Did you even read the start of this thread? You know how threads on the 'internet' work, right? Hit me up if you need a step to step guide.

FM - agreed.

Bake - 100% agree.

Anon - You're anon for a reason. Not worth responding to the troll job.

Jake - Appreciate the input, but I personally don't think the 3 to 2 refs shift helps.

How can you say 57 is way too high when you didn't see the game?

That's BG logic. Just keep fouling because the refs will stop calling them because if they don't fans/NBL will complain they call too many fouls.

In fact that's now Perth Wildcat logic. I'd love to have seen 57 fouls called last night. 50 of them on Perth. Redhage, Martin, Robbins should have been fouled out by halftime.

If you don't believe me listen to Beveridge's time out from last night. "If you need to shirt front them then do it" was his instruction to his guards to keep the King's bigmen off the boards. Why? Because Beveridge knows the referees won't call it. Why? Because fans like you don't want them to.

Martin deliberately ran through a screen head first last night 3mins into the game. Right in front of the referee. No call. Why? Because fans don't want referees to call too many fouls.

Redhage elbows, pushes and holds on every single screen he sets. But he's a star and the NBL instruction to referees is to keep the stars in the game. So they allow fouls like that to go uncalled because 'fans' want the stars on the court.

So Redhage in response just takes it further and further to the point he had a fist in the throat of a defender last night while he fended the defender off for a pass. It took the referee 3-5 seconds to finally make the call, which he clearly didn't want to make.

Because 'Fans' declare that 57 fouls is too much irrespective of the amount of illegal contact, the referees have to allow a certain amount of illegal contact to go without penalty.

Result, the game is won by physicality not skill. I'm sorry but as a fan I'd rather see however many fouls is necessary depending on the way the teams are playing.

Right now it works Magic, Kings, Wildcats have won titles based on beating up their opposition because referees are forced to allow the game to flow.

How many travels get let go these days? Why? because fans want to see excitment, dunks and players penetrating to the basket.

The NBL is caught between being a profession basketball competition (such as EuroLeague) and being a fan friendly night of entertainment (such as the NBA)

Problem is at the moment they're failing at both and just pissing off both types of consumers.

Hockey is the most violent sport I've ever watched, and I'd like to know why the players are permmited to behave so uncivilized and why the referees are allowing this kind of behavior? I mean the players are skating on sharp blades and carrying big hard clubs, weapons oops I mean sticks; They act like savages. Basketball is a contact sport BUT an NBA player throws down the ball out of silent frustration and a Technical is called and or fined for speaking out AFTER a game. Help me to understand why that is, somebody please.....Please...