It does seem strange that this violation appears to carry a stiffer penalty than a foul in this case (a try in flight). But there is no other way to do it. If you think about it, if the ball remained live, the basket would count; so, what would be the penalty for the violation?
When this offense was a T, the 2 FTs, the foul charged to the player, and the team foul counting toward the bonus were the punishment (which many thought was too severe), but now that it is a violation, if the try is successful and the rules allowed the basket to count, effectively there wouldn't be any punishment. This would be a big loophole.
Only if the try missed would the violating team lose something (the opportunity to rebound).
Since excessively swinging the elbows has been deemed an unsafe action by the NFHS, they are obligated to write the rules such that this action is punished whenever it occurs.
[Edited by Nevadaref on Oct 12th, 2004 at 04:00 AM]
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