Quote:
Originally posted by rainmaker
This all brings to mind a question I've long wondered about, which is, "When is a time-out officially granted?" Here's what I mean.
A1 dribbles into a trap (okay, she's not very smart). She's getting close to a 5-second violation. Coach A requests a time-out. Ref glances at Coach A, sees that it is in fact the coach, and then blows the whistle. In the time it takes for the coach to get the refs attention and for the ref to blow the whistle, B1 gets her hands on the ball. At what point in the process of request, glance, whistle is the TO considered to have been granted so that the held ball might not be called?
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Well, here's how I usually handle it. If I'm watching the play, and I hear a request for the TO, and I know it can be legally granted, but I just don't know for sure who's calling it, I look up to see who's asking. If it is the team in control, I hit the whistle. If something happens in the meantime, I have explained that I granted the TO when it was requested, but there was a slight delay so I could verify it was indeed the right coach who made the request. Just like a delayed whistle for a foul; the whistle didn't cause the ball to become dead, the foul did. Using that same logic, I granted the TO (in my mind), and then verified it and blew the whistle. There's probably not a casebook backup to that, so use at your discretion.