Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyMac
"Signals"?
It could be a tap on the shoulder. A physical touch. "Excuse me young man, that was a travel".
When I find an old hard boiled egg that rolled to the back of the refrigerator, a "signal" to me that it could be bad is its odor.
I'm trying to think of an odor that officials could emit as a signal, but choose not to bring that to a final conclusion.
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How is this relevant? In the rulebook and mechanics manual, "signal" has a specific meaning. A signal is a specific movement of the hand(s) and/or arm(s), occasionally of a foot, to indicate a specific action related to the game (signalling a foul, violation, timeout, or other stoppage of play (held ball/jump ball)).
Rich1 is right that the signal and whistle happen, or at least ought to happen simultaneously. The reason is that the timer can react to the visual signal if he failed to hear the whistle (or the whistle fails to sound). If there is only the whistle, but no visual signal to stop the clock, it is possible that the timer may not stop the clock on time. The reason why this is a moot point at higher levels is because they have special technology allowing the game and shot clocks to stop when the whistle is blown.
At the NFHS and lower college levels, it is important for officials to signal that the game clock is to stop, to avoid such errors. At the Division 1 level, with precision timing, stopping the clock with a signal is important for redundancy, in case the whistle fails to sound, and for instant replay, to correct timing errors.