The following are the guidelines used for making assignments for the Section V Boys Basketball Tournament held each year following regular season play. NOTE: The guidelines used have nothing to do with regular season assignments. For example, during the regular season you may be a Tier 2 official and for the tournament you may be a Tier 1 official, and vice versa.
The No. 1 goal for the committee is to place the best crew of 2 or 3 officials on every game, based on availability of officials.
The Section V Assignment Committee consists of the following members:
- Rich Frank, chair
- Sandy Swingle
- Randy Traugott
- Jim Palermo
This committee of four observes games during the regular season, both in person, as well as video through streaming. The committee also observes many single plays called during the regular season, sent to them by coaches. Another goal of the committee is to observe every Board 60 official live or through video streaming during the regular season at least two times and by two different observers.
Sources used to place officials into tiers: A lot goes into how officials are placed into tiers for the tournament assignments. Three different sets of ratings and observations are used: (1) The coaches ratings, (2) Board 60 ratings and (3) the Section V Committee observations listed above.
(1) Coaches: Coaches are expected to submit a 1 to 10 rating for each official they have on their games throughout the season. A rating of 4 or lower must have a specific comment as to why the low rating. At the seasons end, the ratings are cumulated and broken down by three equal numbers of officials into tiers 1, 2 and 3. These tiers are listed alphabetically, so regardless of where an official falls numerically, all in that particular tier are equal.
(2) Board 60: A rating committee assigned by Board 60 provides the Section V Committee with their season end ratings, also broken into tiers 1, 2 and 3. This is also provided to Section V alphabetically, so all officials in a particular tier are equal.
(3) Section V Committee: This committee meets with about a week to go during the regular season to discuss what tiers each of the officials who have made themselves available for the tournament will be placed in. We do this based on what we have observed during the regular season. We also use feedback from other sources we may have contacted during the year. These sources may include officials who observe for Board 60, or active officials who we may ask for feedback about how a certain official was as a partner. Once we have our three tiers listed and alphabetized, we are ready to merge the coaches, Board 60 and the Section V Committees tiers.
Merging the Coaches, Board 60, and Section V tier lists: The Section V committee tier list holds the most weight, Board 60 is next and the coaches is third. Once we have completed merging the lists we again alphabetize the names and divide them evenly into three tiers. The committee then goes a bit further and breaks each of the lists into 1A and 1B, 2A and 2B and 3A and 3B. This is done so if we have to go beyond a certain tier to get an official, we go to the A group first. We are now ready to assign.
Meeting to assign: Once we sit down to assign the games, Ed Stores, Chairman of the Section V Boys Basketball Committee, and Joe Sposato, Executive Committee member of Section V Boys Basketball join us. They mostly just listen in, occasionally discuss rivalries and/or particular styles of play. This feedback has been relayed to them by coaches and its very helpful when making assignments. A computer program developed specifically for assigning officials is used. All the coaches ratings, tiers, closed dates, closed schools by officials, and blocked officials by coaches have been downloaded into the program. The two teams playing are entered into the program and a list of all eligible officials on that date comes up. It is also the intent of the committee that officials will not be assigned the same team in back-to-back rounds. There are a lot of factors that we need to look at, including that an official might be a great fit for this game but he/she is also a great fit for another game that we feel they might be better suited for. This is where our officiating expertise comes into play.
Before and during the tournament, the committee keeps all officials informed of certain items we either need, or what to expect. Board 60 has done a great job getting those communications out to its officials.
