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MS coach at my school came to see me Monday morning to ask a question about a game last Saturday. Seems one of his players took an elbow to the stomach and fell to the ground. Ref's didn't see it and play was continuing to go the other way down the court. Kid gets up and threatens to attack the player he claims hit him with the elbow. Teammates hold him back, Refs call a T, and coach comes on the floor to calm the player down. Player is still pretty animated and says some more inappropriate things and gets a second T. Coach gets player to sit on the bench but from the bench player is still complaining so he gets a 3rd T and Refs tell player he has to leave the gym.
Can you give a player 3 T's? I didn't think so. Should the 3rd T have gone to the coach instead?
Incedentally:
Coach is a good friend of mine, and tells me that he understands that all the T's were warranted. He's curious if the elbow that his player took was intentional as his player claims-but understands refs can easily miss something like that (especially at MS level). His question for me was whether or not the player is eligible to play the next game-and since the next game is the tournament is it just one game or the whole day?
I told him that their is no specific rule on eligibility in the book and that it would depend on league rules. Our principal and AD check the league rules and although the kid should be suspended one game according to our leagues HS rules there is no such rule in the MS constitution. Coach and AD decide to bench player one practice and first game of the tourney-as well as bring up the discrepancy in the rules at the next league meeting (getting the game suspension added to the MS rules.)
I also warned my friend that he could have gotten a Flagrant T for leaving the bench but since he was defusing the situation a good ref would probably ignore it-like they did.
[Edited by oc on Jan 31st, 2005 at 07:08 PM]
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