Rule is Rule But...

Last Saturday night the boys basketball team was the visiting team at a Shootout at Rock Falls. Galesburg had been designated the "away" team and DeKalb was designated the "home" team. As you may remember, several years ago Illinois' men's team always wanted to wear orange at home. During one televised game viewers could not tell Illinois from the visiting team. Because of such sitautions, the National Federation for hs determined home team must wear white or face a technical. DeKalb chose to wear their orange jerseys as the home team. Originally the refs said the game would start with a technical. Later the refs decided not to administer the rule. So no technical was called. Galesburg lost by 1 point. The choice of a no call was pretty significant.

Two years ago the IHSA sent a memo to refs asking them to enforce that the teams could not run around the court when going out to warmup. In some situations, especially with boys basketball, it was used to intimidate. I was unaware of the memo. Sure enough, our first game we were give a T for running around the court. So the game started with us behind 2-0. Because I found that annoying, I have chosen to just keep track each game if the opposing team breaks the rule. Since that game two years ago, the opposing teams have run out on the floor incorrectly 12 times. The result- zero technicals.

Is it really important to have the home team wear white jerseys? Is it really important to not allow the teams to run around the floor coming out for warmups? I would guess that all of these rules were ones that were thought out by people and designed to eliminate a problem. Are they rules that impact a game like a critical over and back call? Usually not. But I would argue when they are selectively enforced or selectively not enforced, then an advantage or disadvantage is being created for a given team.