Quote:
Originally posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
Mark Padgett:
I agree with you regarding the rules reference and my first inclination would be to follow the rule (there are many coaches and officials out there that will tell you that I am a stickler for the rules). But I think that you and I would agree, that to give the ball to Team B via the AP Arrow is unfair and I hope that the intent of the rules in this case is to be fair. I think that this is a rare situation that the NFHS and NCAA Rules Committees should address.
We all know that sometimes the rules require something that seems unfair to one team. One of the fundamentals of any set of rules for a game is that a team should not gain advantage it is not entitled too. I cannot speak for the rules committees but I still think that they would be hard pressed to say that Team B should get the ball because of an inadvertent whistle under this unique situation.
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I agree that teams should not gain an advantage when they are not entitled to, and that there should be some kind of relief in the rules to prevent that. In my opinion in the stated case, team B is also getting some advantage to which they are not entitled by getting a timeout when they are not entitled to get one, due to an official's error. Although, this really isn't quite as big a deal as getting a possession, perhaps.
The real bad aspect of the way the actual rule is written is this: what if, instead of the timeout being called after A1 rolled the ball onto the court, he hadn't yet inbounded? Technically, there is no team control at this point and by rule, you would go to the arrow coming out of the timeout. This would really be contrary to the spirit of equity.
As to those of you who said the ruling should depend on whether or not a member of team B was "near" the rolling ball when the whistle was blown, I think that makes no sense at all. What if A2 and B1 were equidistant from the ball? Would that give more credence to a jump? That's just nonsense, IMHO.
Maybe one step in the right direction would be for the rule to state that if there is an inadvertant whistle (and I would include this case as one), you go back and pick up the game as it was at the time of the whistle. I know the rule implies that, but because of the definition of team control, it doesn't always happen. If the rule was changed, in the case of A1 not having yet inbounded, they would get the ball back at that point. I must admit, however, that you probably couldn't go back and roll the ball on the floor and start play with it rolling.
And, while we're at it, let me get on my perpetual soapbox and state my favorite rule change. Let's take the same attitude on technical fouls. In the NBA, they look at a technical as something that happens "outside the normal play of the game" (my quotes, not their's). So, they "freeze" the game, take care of the technical and then pick the game up where it left off (of course, we might have to change the "team control" requirements as I suggest above). This seems eminently fair to me. In fact, adding possession to the technical foul penalty penalizes a team more if they were on offense when they committed a technical than if they were on defense. This makes no sense. It assumes there is more of an expectation of sportsmanship from a team when they have the ball, so therefore the penalty is more severe if they do. I really don't care that the penalty is two free throws, not one like in the NBA (in fact, I support two), but I do think we should take the "and possession" aspect out.
I heard at a clinic once that the NF has the "and possession" part in there because they think we are too dumb to be able to figure out what should happen to the ball otherwise. I don't doubt that's the reason. I have heard many times that one of the main reasons we have the AP arrow in the first place is that the NF doesn't think we are capable of making good tosses consistently. Of course, the other reason is that if we jumped each time there was a tie-up, some games would take days.