Hoops

Smyth tech?!

When are coaches going to be penalised for walking on the court during play? Some are constantly standing, walking and crossing over the lines of the court which I thought was illegal.

For those who are interested, I sent an email to Marc Howard (NBL) as I wanted some feedback on whether the matter was reviewed by them due to contraversial circumstances on whether it was a fair calling or not by an official. I was very pleased to get a response from him but as I expected, it didn't really answer my questions. This is the response I received;

"My understanding of the situation surrounding that particular technical foul is that the Adelaide bench received a warning in the first half and again immediately prior to the tech being issued. That being the case, the officials are perfectly justified in tech fouling the Adelaide bench. In fact, they could have done so earlier rather than issue a second warning."

From this response, it suggests to me that the Tech Foul call was made not based on that particular instance alone but out of frustration to a second warning which in itself may not have justified that call. Also, if the officials could have issued a tech foul in the first instance as stated by Marc, that would have been better than in the dying seconds of a close game that gave the Sixers no chance of fighting back.

I know my opinion on this matter is not shared by everyone, but I strongly believe that the Sixers were disadvantaged in this game. Not issuing a tech foul when it may be justified and then issuing it when it may not be justified tells me a lot about the capabilities of the refs at that game.

This is a quote of what Boti said "Veteran observers at the game said it was "highly unlikely" Smyth would have received a technical foul from a more senior referee". Smyth himself says that he cannot reveal details of the tech foul because of NBL rules. I cannot understand why there is this wall of silence when there is a good chance that a ref (a less than senior one)has made a bad call. Particularly when it directly affects the outcome of the game. Refs make mistakes all the time. Why can't they be reviewed and action taken accordingly, even if it means a replay of the last 5 minutes of a game to re decide the outcome. I know it doesn't make economical sense to do that, nor does the schedule allow for it, but its worse to allow a team to lose a game on a ref's error. Teams put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making the championship, to lose it to ref errors is ludicrous. For Heaven's sake, they are NBL accredited refs and there's 3 of them on the court at all times, surely they can get it right.

Our positioning on the ladder is critical as far as how well we go in the playoffs. Every win from here on is a valuable win. Its a fact that the Sixers are more successful at home, so its important to position themselves to get home court advantage come playoffs. I am not denying that a split on the road is a good result, but I disagree that Phil would have dismissed the importance of winning it.

I thoroughly disagree Isaac. We wouldn't be giving up any wins voluntarily, particularly with an important Tigers game coming up on Wednesday. The Tigers will be more hungry than we will for that win so this game against the Pirates would have been an important one to win to us. Its not just the split thats important, its positioning on the ladder leading into playoffs.

What did Smyth do? With all the abuse and walking on court that most other coaches get away with at the Dome, We can only imagine .....

Hopefully some details will come out regarding the tech foul as everyone is hanging out to hear about it. It was such a crucial time of the game, I doubt Phil would have deliberately jeopardised the team's chances of winning that game. Considering Phil is usually such a cool and calm character, something terribly wrong went on there to aggravate him to that extent.