I was working a two-man system in a girls' game tonight with a friend of mine. He is a quality official and has worked 3 state championships so far, but has never been really strong on the rules. He came to me last season and expressed his desire to improve his rules knowledge in order to help his chances of working college games, so we have been spending some time covering case book-type plays over a few beers.
Anyway, it paid off tonight. He was lead and had A1 drive down the middle of the lane. She jumped and was fouled across the arms by B1 while in the act of shooting. At this point I heard his whistle, so I knew what he had. I then observed A1 plow over B2 who had LGP under the basket. (NFHS rules) The contact was hard, sending both players to the floor, and the defender took it squarely in the chest.
The try was not successful.
At this moment I thought, I can't call that because he's already called a foul on the defense and it would just make a mess of things. Surprise! I then heard his whistle again, and he called the PC. "Great call, partner!" is what went through my mind.
He now comes off the end line and we meet at the top of the key. He says, "False double, now what do we do?"
In this summer league, we award one point and shoot one FT for fouls committed against a shooter if the try is unsuccessful. I told him that we penalize each in order, so we give Gold one point and one shot with no one on the lane and then award the ball OOB to Blue. I then gave a quick run down to the table of what I wanted done score- and foul-wise, so that both coaches could hear and on we went. It really went quite smoothly, and this made me realize that this call could and should be made without causing too much of a stir, which was why I was hesitant to call it when it happened. Thankfully, my partner stepped up.
After the game, I told him what a great call he had made, and that I was really pleased that he knew it was a false double. Of course, I shared my thought process during the play with him and added that I should have had the second foul for him, since it needed to be called, and that I wouldn't let him down like that again.
He responded by telling me that he even knew to count the basket if it had been made! He just wasn't sure about the administration of everything, so he wanted to check with me.
This was the first time I had ever seen this call made by a single official, and I'm glad he did it because he saved me.
In the end, I think I learned more on this play than he did.