Surprise Surprise...We Have Another Insane Fight At An AAU Tournament As A Coach Throws Hands With A Ref

First of all, that was a very interesting matchup of fighting styles. The coach went in with a badger mentality, looking to keep things close and tight like a brawler. Meanwhile the ref appeared to have some sort of boxing background as he was able to bounce on his feet, ready to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

Now this fight taking place at an AAU tournament like the other fights that have taken place at AAU tournaments is just lunacy. Having reffed these tournaments let me first tell you these refs are 100% qualified and have done games at this level of talent likely all year. It is worth noting that when you have a tournament like this of 30 to even 70 teams and games going at the same time you do have to go a little deeper in the rotation. If there was 1 game, the assignor would call his 3 best guys. When you have 10-12 courts going like some of these tournaments do, it’s very simple to understand that you may be getting someone a little bit down on the depth chart. The refs are all qualified but luck of the draw means you may get 34-35-36 on the list, that’s just how it goes.

Coaches need to know that going in and act accordingly… especially that the refs get paid virtually nothing for these tournaments. Trash pay. The biggest thing of all is these games mean zero. AAU is teams thrown together, mostly in games decided by 20 points one way or the other. The players know that and are trying to get reps in and improve on their skills for the upcoming season and in high school hopefully get looked at by a college coach, which is again kind of luck of the draw because there’s 12 games going on at once so you got to hope a coach happens to be sitting at your court.AAU is 3-4 games a day ,usually blowouts, You get in the van eat fast food and go home. Yet somewhere along the line,coaches have this insane notion that winning AAU games means they are in line to be a head coach in college.It’s just not the case. Kinda sad really.Yet they act like LUNATICS on the sideline. Every week there’s an issue. 

This particular one I can tell you there is absolutely no reason for this coach to go swing at a ref making $33 per game and working 8-9 games in a day just to try and have some spending money for the week. Further more there is absolutely ZERO reason he should be allowed to coach again and any parent that lets their kid play for him,or doesn’t rip their child off the court the moment this happens and leave the game is a MORON. Coaches will keep getting away with this stuff if there are no repercussions. Just a brutally sad environment of AAU basketball, which needs a complete fix but I think we are too far gone. The only things worth attending or watching or the ones that have a real grip of control are the elite team events where high level players are being looked at by colleges. The EYBL and sneaker companies have done a great job trying to phase out AAU… as they should.