WOW. This happened last night in a HS playoff game. Team A with about 3 minutes left calls a time out. I was certain I watched one of the officials signal to Coach A , and a fellow official, that Team A had 1 time out left. Down to 5 seconds.. Team A down by 3...Team A #20 calls a time out. Official grants time out, THEN scorer tells the officials they had none left. Team B gets 2 free throws and ball and runs out clock.
I was discussing this with a veteran official. My feeling is you have a head coach, and this team had 3 assistants. So there were potentially 4 people who could keep track of time outs, and failed to do so. In that kind of a game (5A, very high level in Texas), don't the officials have enough going on to remember who has what time outs....which star player has 4 fouls so we don't foul him out with a cheapie, etc..
My friend's response was he gets both coaches together in the last few minutes, and tells them in front of each other how many time outs are left.
I can see both sides of this, and am interested in the discussion.
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