It's a Block. No, it's a Charge. Block/Charge plays are tough. But knowing the rules shouldn't be.

This is another Rule Review segment covering plays involving block/charge fouls, a point of emphasis for the 2020/2021 basketball season. This video is dedicated to educating basketball officials on the proper way to look at block charge plays, including establishing and maintaining a legal guarding position. Watching actual videos of block/charge fouls help officials learn faster and retain rule information better. We can all learn together by continually discussing the rules as they are written pertaining to block charge fouls and reinforce those rules by applying them to actual high school basketball videos. Many officials find the block/charge play difficult to call because they are more focused on the ball handler and less on the defense. Refereeing the defense gives us a better evaluation of who got to the spot first legally. If we can master knowing when defenders establish legal guarding positions, the block charge play will become easier to rule on.

In this segment of Rule Review, the block/charge video clips we reference are all high school games and involve different aspects to improving your ability to successfully recognize a legal guarding position assisting in calling a block or a charge more proficiently.

Video #1
An offensive player drives into the lane only to crash into a defender. To determine if it's a block or a charge we must first determine who arrived at the spot first. The requirements of a defender include having 2 feet on the floor and facing his opponent and this can occur literally fractions of a second before the ball handler gets there. Since the defender completed these requirements in this clip, a charge call should have been ruled.
Video #2
A pass is thrown to an airborne player, but since this player came back to the floor before any contact, he is no longer considered airborne. Also, when contact does occur, the defender is moving toward his opponent and even if he had established a legal guarding position, to maintain that position the defender is not allowed to move toward his opponent. This play was correctly called a blocking foul.
Video #3
As the dribbler alights and attempts a try for a goal, he runs into the defender shoulder, knocking him over. When examined closer it is seen that the defender established a legal guarding position before the shooter became airborne, and even though the contact was not in the center of the chest, it is still a charging foul because the torso includes the shoulders.
Video #4
When a dribbler drives along the endline and leaps to shoot the ball, he runs over his opponent, yet no whistle is blown. Looking closer, we see the defender established a legal guarding position and right before the contact happens, the defender turns and is hit on the side of the shoulder. This should still be a charging foul as the defender, after establishing a legal guarding position, is not required to continue facing his opponent, and the rules allow him to turn or duck to absorb imminent contact. This play should have been ruled a charge.

Watching video clips is a good way to stay connected to the skill of officiating basketball but true education and learning can more effectively be attained when each video is annotated with diagrams and shading to point out key teaching points. Taking away and remembering specifics on a rule such as the block/charge is easier when visual aids are used to present in a way that is easy to listen to and understand.

The Officials Institute, and the Rule Review segment, creates videos that don't leave you guessing about whether there was a foul, violation or not. Even though we cannot officiate in slow motion or freeze frames, by watching and reviewing video video in this fashion, we are able to "retrain our brain" so we can start seeing plays more accurately when we do see them in real time and increase our ability to get the call right.
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All rules referenced in this video are taken from the official rules book provided by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). To find out more about the NFHS, you can visit them at https://nfhs.org/