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A.R. 251 NCAA Men's

Under this Case Book adjudication, it does not follow that you can only penalize the "6 players on court" infraction while the ball is live.

I don't have access to PDF so I cannot copy/paste the entire play (it's a bit long to type), but please look this adjudication up.

Also, per the notes on this case play:

".... The penalty of Rule 10-2.6 applies only when the sixth player participates when the ball is live. There is no time limit within which the officials have to recognize and penalize the infraction. However, the officials must see the violation occur or have personal knowledge that it did occur in order to penalize this infraction. A monitor may not be used to obtain such knowledge."

Use your best judgment. If a timeout was called and you immediately notice 6 are walking toward the bench, in most scenarios you can probably deduce with high certainty that there were 6 guys on the floor. For me, personally, that is enough personal knowledge to administer the technical.

Edit: I don't have NFHS case book in front of me, but perhaps comparable adjudication is therein.