It's "Selection Friday" for referees

[Sir Lawrence]

NCAA referees sweating out their own bubble watch
Game officials will find out Friday if they are working the Big Dance.    
   
NCAA referee Jim Burr missed out on last year's NCAA tournament after failing to meet one of several requirements in place as part of the process for tournament selection. Game officials will find out Friday if they are working the Big Dance.
   


       

By Jack Carey, USA TODAY

Basketball players from teams on the NCAA tournament bubble aren't the only ones anxiously awaiting their postseason fates. Game officials can log on to a secure Internet site Friday night and learn whether they're among the 96 officials and eight alternates selected to work the event.

It will be the culmination of a season-long evaluation process headed up by John W. Adams, in his first year as the NCAA's coordinator of men's basketball officiating. Adams has worked with four regional advisers and officiating coordinators from all 31 Division I conferences to find the best men.

The selected officials will hear Sunday evening from site managers for the NCAA's eight first-round venues about which game sites they're to report to.

There are four first-round games at each of the eight sites, meaning a dozen officials will work games in each city in the first round. Seven, including a standby, will stay for the two second-round games at each place.

As evaluations continue, nine of the officials will work at each of the four regional sites the following week. Ten, including one standby, will be sent to the Final Four in Detroit.


Selections for the tournament will be brought before members of the men's basketball committee in Indianapolis for final approval this weekend.

Adams says there are four criteria that officials have to meet as part of the process.

"They have to work a minimum of 25 games prior to the start of conference tournaments, they have to attend a regional clinic, they must pass with an 80% score an online rules questionnaire and mechanics test, and they must allow for the NCAA to do a background check," says Adams.

The 25-game minimum is a new requirement this season, but last year, a number of high-profile officials missed out on tournament assignments because they did not meet all the other administrative requirements.

Among them were Bernard Clinton and Jim Burr, who has worked 16 Final Fours. Burr last year told USA TODAY, "There was a document online that I thought I did, and (NCAA officials) claim they didn't receive it."

Administrative requirements have not led to similar issues with officials this year, Adams says.

Coordinators for each of the Division I conferences submit nominations of officials by Feb. 15 for consideration for the tournament. "Each league will have at least one representative from that list working in the tournament," Adams says.

Many of the officials work in several leagues.

"There's competition (among conferences) for the best officials on certain days," Adams says. "They're independent contractors, and many of them do it for a living."

The NCAA likes to have tournament assignments set up so officiating crews are either familiar with both teams or unfamiliar with both.

"Say you have a Big East team against (a Southeastern Conference) team in a regional. We don't want a guy who has worked one league substantially and not the other," says Adams. "We like to find guys who are either common to both or have worked neither team.

"We'll have our fingers crossed and hope we made the right selections. Unforeseen things happen in sports. It's all in the rulebook, but they're always under the gun."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/2009-03-11-referees-tournament_N.htm

I'm surprised Jim Burr even knows what an "online document" is. 

[Pardner]

"they must pass with an 80% score an online rules questionnaire and mechanics test".

Ok, now that I know the NCAA has stringent requirements, I will quit complaining.

[mu-rara]

Jim Burr hasn't run the whole court all year.  All these old ffffffffs should be fired.   Its the same in the WIAA. 


Sorry.  Had to vent.

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

Its the same in the WIAA. 

Officiating for almost any sport in the WIAA is an embarassment.

[MUfan12]

Officiating for almost any sport in the WIAA is an embarassment.

+1

If anyone thinks the politics within the Selection Committee is bad, they haven't seen the WIAA operate... haha

[Eye]

As someone who's covered high school sports for 12 years, what the average person knows is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the WI2A and the politics involved.

[LON]

As someone who's covered high school sports for 12 years, what the average person knows is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the WI2A and the politics involved.

Like the higher ups wanting to put private schools in the bigger [enrollment] divisions because they don't have "special ed" kids that add to their total enrollment...that one made me laugh.

[Eye]

The interesting thing is most private schools would be willing to play in the same division as the smallest public school in their league. It's just the arbitrary rules and multipliers applying equally to all private schools that most of them have a problem with. If you'd like specific examples, let me know.

It's been 2 1/2 years, but I'm still 99 percent sure the WI2A changed the rules after the fact to keep a private school out of the football playoffs in 2006. It took them 7 days to give me anything resembling a straight answer when I questioned them about it. The incoming executive director, who at the time was administering football, thought it was below him to have to answer my questions looking for an explanation.

[LON]

The interesting thing is most private schools would be willing to play in the same division as the smallest public school in their league. It's just the arbitrary rules and multipliers applying equally to all private schools that most of them have a problem with. If you'd like specific examples, let me know.

It's been 2 1/2 years, but I'm still 99 percent sure the WI2A changed the rules after the fact to keep a private school out of the football playoffs in 2006. It took them 7 days to give me anything resembling a straight answer when I questioned them about it. The incoming executive director, who at the time was administering football, thought it was below him to have to answer my questions looking for an explanation.

I was a part of the team that lead to the "Xavier" rule that states when a football team has 5 wins or an above .500 record they get into the playoffs...we got screwed and a public school got in over us, that was back in 2001; but yes, the politics involved are ridiculous

[Eye]

You may have notice the rules changed from 2006 to 2007 due to the situation I referenced as well. I had a minor dog in the fight in that the kids who were denied the playoff berth were kids I coach in baseball, but the vast majority of my questioning was just to be able to provide a straight answer in print as to why they didn't make it, and the spin/CYA mentality I dealt with for seven days after that was absolutely astounding. The fact that they selected the guy they did as the new executive director says a lot about the administration of the organization at the top levels. I won't even get into the fact that I think they ought to look into playing the state basketball and hockey tournaments at the BC, the state football finals at Lambeau and the state baseball finals at Miller Park (it's all about giving kids the best possible opportunities, right), but there's about as much chance of that happening as there is of MU getting a 1 seed in this year's tourney.

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

But Eye, the Alliant Energy center in Madison is such a nice place for the girl's basketball championship!

To me, it just represents the absolute dominance that public schools and the University system have over prep sports (K-12) that they'd do everything in Madison. Someone on this board when talking about a recruit from Wisconsin said that he was probably born wearing a red sweater with a white turtleneck. It's such a good metaphor.

[Eye]

To be honest, I've never been to a girls state tournament game at either venue (the one team I've covered that made it concurred with me being at the 2005 C-USA tourney in Memphis). Do they draw more than 4,000 a game, or would the Al be a great fit for something like that? Make it a hot ticket.

I have been in that building for many hockey state tournaments. It's not a great building for hockey, let alone basketball. How about the girls tourney at the Resch Center? If I'm running the show, I put the games in the best, most modern facilities possible.

But you're exactly right. They constantly spew BS about the tournaments needing to be centrally located. If that's the case, they all ought to be played at UW-Stevens Point.

I got laid off in late January as a sports editor for three weekly newspapers (high school sports are 95 percent of the job), work on a very part-time level as the web and stats guy for a conference, do games on tape-delayed TV, and coach baseball for both a HS and Legion program. I think I'd be pretty qualified to be a HS AD. I'm also single and have no kids, so the long and oddball hours wouldn't bug me. But I have little interest in doing it for a public school. The politics of it would drive me nuts.

I wasn't near as anti-Madison 12 years ago as I am now. When you get inundated with it for 12 years ...

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

My HS team just won D4, which is why I brought it up. And yeah, I thought of the Al too. I think that venue would be perfect. Might have some problems transitioning in and out different teams (they quarter up the inside so that fans sit on opposite ends and when a game is about to end the other two quarters fill up). But the place just feels like a dungeon for games (the Alliant Energy Center). Not sure about the Resch Center, I've only been there once or twice. I think if they could make sure that the Well's Street parking lot was mostly free on the days they have the event it could be done. I'd also even rather have the BC, even though that place would seem even more empty.