Quote:
Originally posted by Ref Ump Welsch
Just contacted the state office (Nebraska) about this one, to see what their interpretation would be. They advised me if this were to happen in a game, just to blow it dead and issue a warning for reaching through the plane since B1 should have taken her hand off when it went back through the plane. The coordinator of officials said this sounded like a had to be there play to really make a strong call.
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My hat's off to the Nebraska guy. Much of the hardest 'interpretation' is knowing - or deciding - which came first, the chicken or the egg. This is where an ad-hoc rules-based system like the basketball rules breaks down easily, where two rules appear to have jurisdiction - that is, you have broken the plane AND you have touched the ball.
Choosing the lesser penalty seems entirely appropriate.
In fact, this is one of the principles involved in my new rules system - I have cut the length of the rules in half without sacrificing granularity - only internal confusion and accidental obfuscation have been removed, to protect the innocent.