Quote:
Originally posted by assignmentmaker
Quote:
Originally posted by ChuckElias
Quote:
Originally posted by TimTaylor
2. Last touched if front court by player of team with team control.
2. First touched in back court by player of team with team control.
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These are not really correct, Tim. You can have a backcourt violation without anyone touching the ball in the frontcourt. You can also have a backcourt violation without anyone touching the ball in the backcourt.
It's not where you touch the ball; it's when you touch it. The components of a backcourt violation are actually:
1) Team Control;
2) Ball gains frontcourt status;
3) Team A is last to touch ball before it gains backcourt status;
4) Team A is first to touch ball after it gains backcourt status.
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I think this is an admirably concise expression of the requirements of 9-9, with one exception that I raise only because I hope NevadaRef, if he agrees, and will put it on his list for the Rules Committee.
Say the ball is being passed among teammates (A1 & A2) in the frontcourt and is batted in the air into the airspace over the backcourt, where A3, standing in the backcourt, catches it. At the instant A3 catches it, the ball has front court status; then, simultaneously in a rules sense, it attains backcourt status.
I am not suggesting that we ought call this backcourt, only that either in 9-9, or elsewhere, in a more general sense if in fact the principle holds, a protocol for treating this kind of simultaneous event should be expressed.
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While I understand the confusion over this play because of the status of the ball in flight, it is my position that the text of the rule itself, not the four points expression, is what we should look at and that it is clear enough as is.
RULE 9, Section 9
ART. 1 . . . A player shall not be the first to touch a ball after it has been in team control in the frontcourt, if he/she or a teammate last touched or was touched by the ball
in the frontcourt before it went to the backcourt.
I have always said that in your scenario A3 is not the last to touch the ball
in the frontcourt, rather this player is merely the first to touch the ball in the backcourt despite the status of the ball changing at the exact moment A3 touches the ball. Whichever opponent batted the ball into the air was the last player to touch the ball in the frontcourt.
So my take on this play is that the actual text of the rule covers this play just fine and that it is legal.