[Altor]

I was watching a 7th grade game from the stands a couple weeks ago. Held ball under H's basket. Arrow points other way. V-Coach calls full timeout. I thought to myself at the time..."They are going to forget to switch the arrow."

Teams come out of timeout. I don't recall if T told the player "spot" or gave him the finger wagging to signal he could run the endline or did nothing to indicate either. But, V5 took the ball from the official, V13 runs from the foul line to the other end of the end line, OOB, and receives the pass. And proceeds to throw a baseball pass down the floor for an easy layup. As I predicted, the arrow never got changed and V got the next AP too.

I often see officials signaling to each other at the beginning and end of a timeout if a throw-in should be a spot or "running," so I'm not terribly interested about that aspect. It was a 7th grade game, and those officials are either learning what they should be doing or are past the point where they will ever learn.

I am curious if you have any suggestions on how to catch the AP arrow in that situation. I know some carry an extra whistle. Do you swap it at the time you call the held ball, even before the throw-in? That would have caught this one. But, then, what do you do when you have a TF or something weird coming out of that timeout? You've already changed your "personal arrow" when you shouldn't have. Are you relying on yourself to put the whistle back in the other pocket if that throw-in never completes?