New basketball officiating course with Twenty-nine expert-guided video lessons on this season’s changes and the three calls that decide games. Built by Referee, taught by a veteran official, and ready whenever you are.
Every fall, good officials have the same conversation with themselves. The schedule’s out, the meetings are on the calendar, and somewhere in there is the thought: I should do a little more to get ready this year.
The problem has never been motivation. It’s been the options.
Why the usual prep falls short
The rulebook and casebook from your state are necessary. They’re also 200 pages of language that nobody learned to see a block/charge from. The association meeting gets you the list of changes and the test. Then it’s on you.
So officials go online, and what they find is a clip here, a breakdown there, and a guy in the comments who’s sure it was a travel. Some of it’s good. None of it’s organized. Half of it has no explanation at all, and you have no way of knowing whether the person posting it works varsity ball or watches it from the bleachers.
That’s the gap Referee built Game Ready to fill. Not more plays. Guided plays.
What “expert-guided” actually means
Your instructor is Referee Associate Basketball Editor Mike Brya, a veteran official. He’s been where you’ll be, had half a second to decide and a coach in his ear afterward. He gets it. The course is built the way a good clinician teaches: here’s the play, here’s what to look for, here’s the ruling, and here’s why.
Then you take a quiz. Every lesson ends with one, so you find out what you missed at your kitchen table instead of in front of a full gym.
Plenty of officials have an opinion about what’s right. This isn’t opinion. Every play, ruling and explanation has been fully vetted against NFHS rules and interpretations for 2026-27 by the people at Referee who have been doing this for 50 years. When the course says it’s a charge, you can call it a charge.
What’s inside
Season Prep (4 lessons). Every rule change, shown in action: the new 0.3-second minimum in the last minute of a period, using a silent count to correct a clock mistake with definite knowledge, how technicals offset during the pregame dead-ball period, where the throw-in goes after an end-line violation.
Then the editorial changes, which is the section everybody skims and the one most likely to get argued at the table this year. Goaltending now applies to any ball thrown toward the basket, pass or shot. A defensive touch after the ball hits the backboard is goaltending if the ball can still go in. And for the first time, the rulebook defines a screened player’s visual field, which changes how you judge time and distance on every blind screen you see this winter.
Plus the points of emphasis that put contact and traveling back on the officials: hand checks, displacement, two hands in the post, and whether that Euro-step was legal.
Block/Charge (7 lessons). Ask a room of officials for the toughest call in the game and you’ll get one answer. The rule isn’t complicated. Seeing it in time is. This section works the two versions that burn even good crews: the secondary defender who shows up out of nowhere, and the crash at the rim with the shooter in the air. Positioning, recognition, and knowing what you saw before the bodies land.
Screening (9 lessons). The high ball screen runs on nearly every possession now, and illegal ones get passed on all night. The deepest section in the course: what makes a screen legal, how to watch it develop before contact, and video scenario after video scenario to test yourself.
Verticality (7 lessons). The defender got there, held his spot and went straight up. The shooter jumped into him. Who’s responsible? Play after play until you stop bailing out the offense.
What it looks like in your season
Ten minutes before work, you knock out a lesson on your phone. Sunday night, a full section. By your first scrimmage, the editorial changes aren’t a surprise and the block/charge mechanics are a habit.
Then it’s December, and a screening play happens that you’re not sure about. You pull the lesson back up before your next game. The course is on demand and yours all season, so it works the way a good partner does: there when you need a second look.
Who it’s for
Not the official who copies the test answers and shows up in November. This is for the one who wants the varsity schedule, the rivalry game, the postseason assignment, and knows that assigners and partners remember exactly one thing: whether you got the big plays right.
Get Game Ready
Game Ready: High School Basketball Officiating 2026-27 is $19.95, one-time, at courses.referee.com. Twenty-nine lessons. Six sections. A quiz after every one. By Officials, For Officials.
You were already going to do a little more this year. Make it count.
