[BillyMac]

While the situation in the video doesn't exactly match the stupid interpretation, the video can be considered a violation by a broader view of that stupid interpretation (before the recent exception).

SITUATION 7: A1, in the team’s frontcourt, passes towards A2, also in the team’s frontcourt. B1 deflects the ball toward Team A’s backcourt. The ball bounces only in Team A’s frontcourt before crossing the division line. While the ball is still in the air over Team A’s backcourt, but never having touched in Team A’s backcourt, A2 gains possession of the ball while standing in Team A’s backcourt. RULING: Backcourt violation on Team A. Team A was still in team control and caused the ball to have backcourt status. Had A2 permitted the ball to bounce in the backcourt after having been deflected by B1, there would have been no backcourt violation. (4-4-1, 4-4-3, 9-9-1)

If one assumes that a single player can simultaneously be both the last to touch and the first to touch (as stupidly interpreted by the NFHS over the past several years, and reinforced as recently as year ago, while being questioned by many officials, most of whom would not call it a real game), then the video fits the definition of a backcourt violation.

The four elements for having a backcourt violation are: there must be team control (and initial player control when coming from a throw-in); the ball must have achieved frontcourt status; the team in team control must be the last to touch the ball before it goes into the backcourt; that same team must be the first to touch after the ball has been in the backcourt.

1) The offensive team has team control the entire video.

2) When the defensive player, who was in the frontcourt, deflected the ball the ball achieved frontcourt status.

3) The ball didn't achieve backcourt status until it touched the offensive player who was in the backcourt, so the offensive player was the last to touch the ball that had frontcourt status (it wasn't the defensive player who was the last to touch the ball that had frontcourt status).

4) Simultaneously, the offensive player was the first to touch the ball after it achieved backcourt status.

Please don't shoot the messenger, I'm only trying give a stupid rationale for the stupid interpretation.

I one agrees with stupid interpretation that the NFHS has used for several years (until the recent exception) that a single player can simultaneously be both the last to touch and the first to touch (as many of us complained was a stupid interpretation), then both the stupid interpretation and the video, while not exactly the same, are backcourt violations for the same reason, i.e., the stupid interpretation, a single player can simultaneously be both the last to touch and the first to touch.

In both the stupid interpretation and the video the ball did achieve frontcourt status and was in team control by the offensive team the entire time. It really doesn't matter that the ball was being passed between teammates in the stupid interpretation and was not being passed between teammates in the video, both situations are, in essence, the same in regard to the stupid interpretation of a backcourt violation, because the NFHS believed, up until recently, that a single player can simultaneously be both the last to touch and the first to touch.

Bottom line. Most of us wouldn't call either the stupid interpretation, or the video, a backcourt violation in a real game. Now, thanks to the new NFHS exception, we can confidently answer the same way on a written exam.

Goodbye stupid interpretation. So long. Farewell. Arrivederci. Sayonara baby.