[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

I have had on one or two occasions have had to charge a team with a technical foul for having six players on the court, and not once did I charge the sixth player with a technical foul entering the court illegally. Why? As some of my esteemed colleagues have already said, that
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of the time the officials will not ever see the sixth player enter the court. All the officials will see is six players on the court. If one does not know how the sixth player entered the court, the sixth player cannot be charged with a technical foul for illegally entering the court. Illegally entering the court is an infraction of the rules that has to be observed by an official at the moment that the infraction occurs. If one does not see an infraction of the rules then one cannot rule that an infraction has occured. In other words, if you cannot see it happen it did not happen. (I guess I have just answered an age old quatum physics thought problem: If a lightning bolt strikes a tree in the woods and there is no one to hear the thunder has thunder really sounded.) But I digress.

If an official sees a player illegally enter the playing court then the infraction by the player causes the ball to be dead immediately (for exceptions see Rule 4 for the continuous motion rule, and Rule 5 or 6, I cannot think off hand right now which rule deals with live ball and dead ball; I think it is 5, and my basektball briefcases with my rules books are still in the attic) therefore a team cannot be guilty of playing with more than five players at the sametime.

Now I would like to address the reality of the orignial problem in this thread. The play occured at the end of the game. Since Team A's bench is at the same end of the court as its basket (For those not familiar with FIBA rules, the home team has choice of which basket it will shoot at during the first half and a team defends its own basket and tries to score in its opponents basket.): How did B6 illegally enter the playing court?

If A1 shot the ball from Team A's backcourt, that it is possible for B6 to come directly onto the court from Team B's bench. If A1 shot the ball from Team A's frontcourt, then the most logical scenario for B6 t enter the court and be close enough to possibly make contact with the ball is for B6 to already be at the scorer's table waiting to enter the game as a substitute. But it really does not matter from where B6 illegally entered the playing court, I believe it is a situation where the game officials should have seen B6 enter the court almost immediately, thereby making the ball dead unless A1 was in the act of shooting, but the clock does stop because of B6's technical foul.

If A1 is not in the act of shooting, when B6 illegally enters the court, the ball becomes dead immediately, and if A1 then releases the ball, B6 cannot be charged with a technical foul for contacting the ball, because the ball is dead.

If A1 is in the act of shooting, when B6 illegally enters the court, the ball does not become dead, and B6 should be charged with two technical fouls: one for illegally entering the court and one for unsportsmanlike conduct for making contact with A1's field goal attempt. I also want to state that B6's contact with A1's field goal attempt does not make the ball dead; if the ball continues on and passes through Team A's basket from the top, A1's field goal attempt is good. But it should be remembered that any of the other five Team B players can legally block A1's field goal attempt after B6's technical foul for illegal entering the court, in fact, any one of the five other Team B players can legally block A1's field goal attempt after B6 has illegally contacted A1's field goal attempt. It should further be noted any of the five players from Team A and any of the five legal Team B players could commit basket interferenc or goaltending.

Boy am I tired. That's all for now folks.

MTD, Sr.