[Nevadaref]

Here is the problem with this situation. We have a live ball in flight from a throw-in pass. The pass is untouched and yet the signal sounds indicating that time has expired in the quarter prior to the throw-in ending. Unfortunate as it is, the timer's signal makes the ball dead BY RULE. The same is true were an official to sound a whistle, whether deliberate or inadvertent. [I'm strongly of the opinion that the ruling for this play needs to be the same whether the horn sounded or an official blew a whistle while the pass was in flight after noticing that the clock was incorrectly running.]

The following are the supporting NFHS rules.

Rule 6, Section 7 DEAD BALL, article 6: ...time expires for a quarter or extra period

5-6-2 and 1-14 state that time expires when the signal illuminates or sounds.

The problem is not resetting the clock to 0.7 as we all agree that an obvious timing error occurred. The difficulty lies in deciding which team should be awarded possession.

There are two takes on this.
A. Team A (throwing team) was in team control when the when the ball became dead. Although this is a relatively recent rule change and another part of the POI rule instructs to resume with a free-throw or throw-in, if that activity was interrupted.

B. Team B (defending team) would be receiving the ball as the throw-in pass was heading OOB for a violation by the throwing team when the horn sounded.

Given these two choices, I have to select A and give the ball back to the throwing team. It may not seem fair, but it has rule support (note: not precise rules support though, see paragraph below). Option B has no rule support. It is just an official deciding what would be the fair thing to do and invoking 2-3. This opens several problem issues. The official has to consider whether the ball was going to go OOB, get intercepted by a defender, be caught by a teammate of the thrower, etc. To many what ifs here.

Curiously, in working through this scenario, I believe that I've discovered a gap in the NFHS rules.
Consider this situation: B3 makes a FT. A2 inbounds to A1 and he begins dribbling the ball up the court. Upon reaching the division line the covering official notices that the clock has not started. The official blows his whistle to halt play. The official had a backcourt count of five.

All of us would handle this situation by removing five seconds from the clock and awarding a throw-in to Team A near the division line. However, look at the POI rule. Note the reasons for invoking it. Correcting a timing mistake isn't listed. So what is our rules justification for giving the ball to Team A?