By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
The annual meeting of the Euroleague referees took place in Thessaloniki this weekend with five different lecturers and the ex-Refereeing Director, Kostas Rigas getting an “MVP” award.
Euroleague Basketball referees and observers geared up for the upcoming 2015-16 Turkish Airlines Euroleague and Eurocup seasons with the 24th annual Clinic for Euroleague Basketball – FIBA International Referees over the weekend in Thessaloniki, Greece. As always, the clinic was organised by the Euroleague Basketball Refereeing Department, with representatives of European Domestic Leagues, FIBA and special guest lecturers attending.
This season’s lecturers included: Ronnie Nunn, former NBA Director of Officials; Ridvan Ekmekci, Head of the Sport Management Department, Pamukkale University, Turkey; Carl Jungebrand, FIBA Head of Refereeing; Ben Paterson, SportIM Head of Integrity; and Giorgos Bartzokas, Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar Head Coach.
The weekend was used to help referees prepare for the season in many different aspects. There were sessions to refresh and update them on travelling, faking/flopping, game control, cleaning up the game and more. The points of emphasis and guidelines for the 2015-16 season were originally defined together with the Euroleague head coaches in their annual meeting in July, with these subsequently shared with all attendees at the clinic.
Nunn spoke on Sunday about The Making, Moulding and Masterpiecing of a Basketball Official; Ekmekci presented the findings of a joint study on the sources of stress and how to cope in basketball officiating; Jungebrand updated everyone regarding the latest mechanics teaching on the global stage; Paterson delivered a workshop about data integrity and bet monitoring; whilst Bartzokas focused on the nuances coaches teach when defending and attacking on- and off-ball screens. In addition somatometric measurements were taken over the weekend by Thanos Milousis and his colleagues at Ergometric Lab Metrisis in order to evaluate the body composition of each referee.
Nunn commented: “It has been a pleasure in recent years to attend different officiating events across Europe. This is the first time I have been asked to speak at a Euroleague Basketball event and it is refreshing to know that the 94 referees in the group have the same high-level dedication, philosophy and approach as those I have managed in the NBA. My aim was to share my experience, and I look forward to seeing the results on the court.”
New Euroleague Basketball Refereeing Director Richard Stokes said: “Having outside experts from officiating and coaching provides valuable insights for the officials in their preparation for the upcoming season, which as we know is always extremely challenging for officials, coaches and players. We have a great group of officials who are willing to learn and improve every year in order to keep pace with the evolutions that our sport goes through.”
The refereeing clinic came on the heels of EuroBasket 2015, which saw Euroleague Basketball referees handle the competition’s most important games. Luigi Lamonica of Italy and Ilija Belosevic of Serbia worked their second straight EuroBasket championship game together. For Lamonica, it was a fourth EuroBasket gold-medal game. Joining them on the court was Borys Ryzhyk of Ukraine. The refereeing trio for the bronze medal games was also comprised of Euroleague Basketball referees: Christos Christodoulou of Greece, Robert Lottermoser of Germany and Fernando Rocha of Portugal.