[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

Last weekend I had a JV girls game with a first year partner. He had a tough block charge right in front of him. He came out hard with the block and pointed to the floor and said, “on the floor.” Problem was, he wasn’t very loud but the gym was after that play, so people only saw him point down.

After everything got sorted out with the injured player, we started to inbound the ball and the coach was throwing a fit because he saw him count the basket. I told the coach he was pointing to the floor. This is the problem with pointing to the floor, which comes from calling non-shooting fouls “on the floor.” First of all, it’s not relevant if the player was “on the floor” or not. Second, pointing down is confusing to all watching. Wave off the shot, and if you have to say something, say “before the shot.”

I had a similar thing happen earlier this year. I had never in my life thought that the pointing to the floor motion looked anything like a count the bucket. Apparently I was wrong.