EuroBasket 2022 – Commentary on the judges: How to turn a party into a Mickey Mouse event

Two protests within a few hours. The EuroBasket 2022 brings great and exciting games, but far too often the focus is on the referees and their decisions. The problem is homemade, the players and the referees pay the bill themselves. A comment.

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It could all be so beautiful. A full hall in Cologne, a great atmosphere, extremely exciting games and a German team that inspires. And yet: The referees produce the biggest headlines in the basketball cosmos, which sometimes makes the sport a minor matter. A real basketball festival turns into a Mickey Mouse event.

There is no other way to express this. How else can it be that, as in the game between Germany and Lithuania, a technical free throw is simply forgotten? How can it be that in the official box score that forgotten and unexecuted free throw is listed as “miss” even after the end of the game – and then secretly and quietly removed?

This tournament is peppered with top-class players, great teams and intense duels – but in most cases the referees are hopelessly overwhelmed. Again to the Germany game: https://twitter.com/jmiklovas/status/1566655035680882689although – on the advice of the Deutsche Bank – this is expressly not permitted?

Daniel Theis, himself frustrated by the questionable game management, finally got to the point. “Perhaps you can see from this that the referees are too busy with themselves to find their own line and then something like that is forgotten…”

EuroBasket 2022: Players struggle with the referee’s line

While France was more of a Greco-Roman wrestle under the basket against Lithuania the day before, the German Bigs conceded foul after foul on Jonas Valanciunas. Of course, most of them can be called fouls, but if such things were allowed 24 hours beforehand, then of course it causes frustration, resentment, confusion and incomprehension.

And no, the game against Lithuania was not an isolated one in those four days. Just a few hours after the faux pas in Cologne, a scene in cross group A in Tbilisi between Turkey and Georgia caused a stir when the clock happily continued during a game interruption in which NBA professional Furkan Korkmaz and Duda Sanadze wanted to fight each other ran.

22 seconds of net playing time were lost, which is half an eternity in basketball and another absurdity, regardless of whether a team would ultimately have benefited from it. Understandably, Turkey has also lodged a protest, but a verdict is still pending. The odds are a little better than the Lithuanian protest as it was a scoreboard error that was not corrected by the referees.

The fact that there were fisticuffs afterwards is not the fault of the refs, but it may also be a side effect. The fact is that no player understands what is allowed and what is not. “It’s much more physical,” noted Alba star Jaleen Smith, who had similarly bad experiences with Croatia against England (O-Ton Mario Hezonja: “It’s bad. I would have liked to have attended one of these referee meetings in the summer”). “More is allowed here than in the EuroLeague, the FIBA ​​referees whistle a lot less,” said Smith.

EuroBasket 2022: The referee problem is homemade

And this is exactly where the rub lies. The association FIBA ​​and the EuroLeague, which operates as a separate organization, have been at loggerheads for years. There is the EuroLeague, which is comparable to the Champions League in football, and since 2016 the Basketball Champions League, which is held under the umbrella of FIBA, which has little to do with the term Champions League and is more regarded as a conference league can.

This dispute also affects refereeing. Officially, this problem does not exist, but unofficially no referee who whistles in the EuroLeague is allowed to work at a FIBA ​​event – and the best referees happen to whistle in the EuroLeague.

At this point, a certain understanding of the referees must also be found. Nobody intentionally makes mistakes, not even the referees present. But if you referee games like Hapoel Holon against Falco Szombathely all year round, you will have problems officiating in a game in which the best players in Europe meet.

It’s a homegrown FIBA ​​problem that players now have to deal with. Interesting: officials hardly comment on the performance of the referees. Of course not, after all they are members of FIBA ​​and stand by the tough course that the world association is taking towards the EuroLeague.

The casual fan will not know this background and will only wonder what is happening in this tournament these days. It paints a bloody bad picture of the sport, even though this event has all the ingredients to at least spark a little euphoria and step out of the shadow of the all-powerful NBA.

Due to the almost daily (justified) discussions about the referees (by the way: this Franz Wagner is said to have scored 32 points against Lithuania, does anyone remember that?), on the other hand, you destroy yourself a lot again. Too bad.

Basketball EM: The table of group B with Germany