quote:
Originally posted by sip on 02-25-2000 01:11 AM
Can some exlain to me the old LOSA rule and why it was abolished? I am clear on the 5- second closely guarded, but someone tried to call 5 seconds because A1 was holding the ball near the centreline and no defender had come up on him. any help?
Chris
The Bahamas
Ooh, such nostalgia! The old lack-of-sufficient-action (LOSA) rule had a lot of different aspects and was, in my opinion, a real mess to deal with for many officials. It was very confusing to many guys trying to figure out who was responsible for "forcing" the action, and what procedures to use. In general, the team behind was responsible to force the action, which meant causing the ball to proceed beyond the hash mark if they were on offense or coming out to guard the ball if on defense. If they refused to do so, the ref would stick out a fisted arm in the direction of the team that had to force the action (to let them know he was counting now) and count 5 seconds. If nothing happened, he'd have to step a little farther out onto the court toward that team and yell, "White (or whatever), PLAY BALL!" After that, if they didn't comply, it would be a technical. That's just a simple explanation of what I remember (I'm really not that old--just 42). You can imagine all the variations (such as, you had to have TWO guys playing defense closely, not just on the ball) needing to be properly enforced. The "powers that be" probably finally realized it wasn't worth the hassles, so they eliminated the rule. That was somewhere around 15-17 years ago, I'd guess.
[This message has been edited by Todd VandenAkker (edited February 25, 2000).]