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There are two points which I have been trying to make in this thread.
Point #1) Can PLAYERS leave the floor (be out of bounds) during a dead ball period which is not a time-out or intermission? Is there any rule which covers this?
Examples:
a. While the officials are discussing something with each other, during a dead ball, may A1, A2, and A3 go sit down on Team A's bench. Have they broken any rule?
b. A2 fouls B1 in the 3rd quarter. It is his fourth personal foul during the contest, and he knows that his coach is going to remove him from the game. A6 has reported to the scorer and is waiting at the table to replace A2, but may not legally enter yet as B1 must shoot two FTs because of the foul. Prior to the awarding of the FTs and while the ball is still dead, A2 leaves the floor and sits down on Team A's bench. He makes no effort to return. Is there anything wrong with this? May he remain there during the first FT?
It is my belief that under the old 10-3-3 these players could receive player technical fouls for LEAVING the court for an unauthorized reason. However, that part of the rule has been removed. So does the part of that rule which remains in Rule 10 for this season apply to either of the above examples. Should a player who never returns be considered to be DELAYING his return or must the official wait until he tries to return to penalize his actions? I don't know what the NFHS answer is to that question.
Does the new 9-3-2 apply? Your answer to this so far has been no, because they did not leave "during the course of play" as the comment to the rule change says. Yet that phrase is not in the actual rule, so perhaps the NFHS really does intend for it to cover these cases.
Point #2)
Both the old and the new 10-3-3 stated that it was a technical foul for DELAYING returning to the floor. Merely returning to the floor during playing action is NOT in itself illegal; it is the DELAYING of the return which is the offense.
If returning during playing action (as the silly ruling in 10.3.3SitB says) was truly illegal it would be impossible for an inbounder to return to the floor after making the throw-in pass. Nor could any player who dove into the third row to save a ball from going OOB return to the floor since this is certainly during playing action.
That is why I maintain that the reason given for the technical foul in that case play is incorrect, and also why I wrote, "The RULES BOOK does not say, nor has it in the past said, that returning to the floor during playing action is a player technical foul."
Perhaps I should have added the following additional sentence when making my previous post.
The RULES BOOK states that DELAYING returning to the floor is a technical foul. 10.3.3SitB could have given that as a reason and I would have accepted it.
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Lastly, I still must inquire if IMMEDIATELY returning to the floor protects players from receiving any penalty after being OOB during any dead ball.
So, if in either of the examples given above (a & b), the players who went and sat on the bench during the dead ball, stand up and immediately return inbounds as the officials make the ball live have they broken any rule?
If you say no, then players may go sit on their bench during any dead ball as long as they return immediately upon the game resuming. That seems wrong to me as players can't even sit on their bench during a 30-second time-out.
[Edited by Nevadaref on Dec 12th, 2005 at 05:57 AM]
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