Basketball On The Internet.

WHAT a fiasco! The NBL's historic first ever "disruptive foul" call in the wake of the unsportsmanlike foul going the way of the dodo, turned into a total farce when it was clear the three American refs calling the Tasmania-South East game were clueless as to how to proceed.

Obviously they were taking instruction from the NBL's replay centre, by which time Phoenix import Skylar Mays had stepped to the line to shoot the penalty and was allowed to do just that, the ref handing him the ball.

But wait. Apparently it should have been D'Shawn Schwartz taking the free throws as he was the one who suffered the disruptive foul when Nick Marshall lost the ball and lunged at him. (Just irrelevantly, Schwartz fouled Marshall twice on the elbow before effecting that steal but eh, so what hey?)

As the fouled player, Schwartz should have taken the free throw but by Mays stepping in, which is illegal, the free throw was not only disallowed but the JackJumpers awarded the ball at the sideline. Of course, Mays may have believed the foul call, like a technical, made it possible for anyone to shoot the penalty.

Who knows? Maybe he is SEM's designated shooter for those situations.

It was blatantly clear the refs didn't know how to officiate the new rule because if they did, they would just have told Mays to step away from the foul-line, NOT HAND HIM THE BALL.

By now the replay centre, be it Scott Butler or Michael Aylen on duty, would have been howling down the line. Now the Mays free throw error cancels the disruptive foul and it's Tassie ball. We're in the game's final half minute and the Phoenix are two down so no, it wasn't at all important to get this right.

I mean, at what point did common sense completely desert our game? How about our three American amigos admit they were unsure of the rule and line Schwartz up to take the two free throws.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURE: Our sources reveals our American officials are no longer in the dark.

The next question surely becomes why do we have so many American whistleblowers in the NBL now? How well did or does the league treat its officials? Clearly there's a shortage.

The problem is way deeper. How well do parents behave at junior basketball games? The constant berating of kids learning the officiating game does nothing to grow our referee ranks.

But if in the growing desperation we're going to import officials, maybe teach them the FIBA game before they blow one.

Sure, there's no guarantee if they'd nailed the call and the free throws were rightly awarded, that South East might have then won the match.

What it DID guarantee was the historic first disruptive foul call in the NBL goes down in history for all the wrong reasons.