It would be difficult not to touch on basketball during March Madness, so here are a few of my thoughts.

Having admitted to knowing next to nothing about basketball rules and officiating, I want to throw out a question to those who are experts in those areas.

In MSU’s game against Monmouth, fairly early State forward Lawrence Roberts was pushed by a Monmouth player into another Monmouth player, knocking that Monmouth player out of bounds. Roberts was called for a foul.

I know one official covering the baseline might not have seen the initial contact, but it seems elementary that with three sets of eyes covering the court one of the other officials should have seen the whole play. Am I wrong?

I hope somebody with the knowledge will set me straight.

One of these days I hope I will learn enough about basketball to really enjoy watching and talking about the game.

Knowing that a few of my contemporaries played and may still play raquetball, I researched a few facts about the game.

Raquetball (note spelling) was invented in 1950 by Joe Sobek at the Greenwich, Conn., WMCA.

Originally, the game was played on court measuring 40 feet by 20 feet, which was a court used for Irish Handball.

Racketball (again, note spelling) was invented in Ian Wright in England and was played on a court which measured 32 feet by 21 feet. There is no explanation why these dimensions were chosen.

Scoring was originally on the &uot;9 up&uot; sytsem, but in 1983 that was changed to the &uot;15 up point on rally&uot; system.

Raquetball and racketball were offsprings of squash rackets, a game which evolved from tennis. It was designed to be played indoors and was like playing tennis against oneself against a wall.

The court was much smaller so the game could be played in any available gymnasium or even in a ballroom. A soft ball was used, and tennis rackets were cut down as well.

Both squash rackets and racketball have evolved to the point where both games now have trained referees and a large number of sanctioned leagues, teams and tournaments.

The game of Squash has a strict code of conduct, and I’m sure that racketball operates with a similar code. It says, in part,&uot;Offensive, disruptive, or intimidating behavior in Squash is not acceptable.&uot;

Included in this category are audible and visible obscenities, verbal and physical abuse, dissent, abuse of racket, unnecessary physical contact, excessive racket swing, unfair warm-up, time wasting, late back on court, deliberate or dangerous playing or action and coaching (except between games).

Since almost all of these games are played at the recreational level and self-officiated, I wonder if they are overly populated by those players who, as in tennis, will willingly stick up that hand and call your good shot out?

I saw where Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld plays racketball several times a week. I bet not many of his opponents question his shots.

And that’s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. He can be reached at

AlanWard39157@aol.com.