[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

devdog 69 said on Jan. 27, 2002, 11:12am:

"I would have granted her an official's timeout and let her tie her shoe, or told her to get across halfcourt first and then done it."


BktBallRef said on Jan. 27, 2002, 11:57am:

"She didn't dribble again, so there's no double dribble.

If she put her knee down when she tied her shoe, picked the ball up, and stood, then she traveled.

I don't see any other possibilities.

I don't call TO to allow a player to tie her shoe."



First, there is no such thing as an official's timeout.

Second, the official is not to stop play unless the player requests a team timeout. Starting with the 1963-64 season, the National Basketball Committee of the United States and Canada (the predecessor to the NFHS and NCAA Rules Committees) changed the rules by deleting a section in the rules that allowed an official to stop play so that a player could tie a shoe lace. This deletion was not an editorial change but an actual change in the rules. For verification see 1963 in Part 1: The Game of Basketball, Chronology of Basketball Rules, NFHS Basketball Handbook 2000-02. When the NBCUSC split into the NFHS and NCAA Rules Committees, all interpretations of the NBCUSC carried over to the NFHS and NCAA. This means an official is also not to delay making a ball become live by witholding it from play so that a player can tie a shoe lace. I am not going to get into a philosophical debate over this point because it is not debatable. Players even at the jr. H.S. level are capable of tieing their shoes before the game in such a manner that their shoes do not come untied and if they are not tieing their shoes in such a manner shame on them, their parents, their coach.