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Originally Posted by FrankHtown
SITUATION 12: Following a (a) charged time-out; or (b) a lengthy substitution process involving multiple substitutions for both teams, A5 goes to the bench and remains there mistakenly believing he/she has been replaced by a substitute. The ball is put in play even though Team A has only four players on the court. Team A is bringing the ball into A's frontcourt when the coach of Team A realizes they have only four players. The coach yells for A5 to return, and he/she sprints onto the court and catches up with play. RULING: In (a), the officials shall stop play and assess a team technical foul for not having all players return to the court at approximately the same time after a time-out. The technical foul counts toward the team-foul count. In (b), the officials may permit play to continue without penalty. A5's return to the court was not deceitful, nor did it provide A5 an unfair positioning advantage on the court. COMMENT: Even though neither situation provided A5 or Team A with an advantage, teams are expected to return to the court at approximately the same time following a time-out. The officials should have also followed the prescribed mechanics and counted the number of players on the court, ensuring each team has the legal number of players. (10-1-9; 10-3-3)
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I agree with most of this. I agree that if all five players don't return at approximately the same time following a time-out or intermission that it is a technical foul. There is a specific rule that says so.
I also agree that after a substitution process if a player remains on the bench due to confusion that play should be allowed to continue with only four players. There is no rule which says otherwise.
I DO NOT agree that the player who mistakenly remained on the bench should be allowed to return to the court during live action in all cases. This could confer an advantage and could be deceptive to the opponent. I would have to believe that an unsporting technical foul may be appropriate.
Furthermore, I have stated that with the rule change from a couple of years ago which altered the penalty for leaving the floor from a technical foul to a mere violation that there was no rule under which to penalize a player for leaving and remaining on the bench. I've disagreed with the rationale given in the ruling of Case Book play 10.3.3 Sit B (2006-07 version) for a few years now: "A technical foul is charged to A5 for returning during playing action even though A5 had not been replaced." There was no such rule which stated that this was illegal or a T. There was nothing upon which to base this ruling.
So now the NFHS has changed this Case Book play. The 2007-08 version says, "No technical foul is charged to A5. A5's return to the court was not deceitful, nor did it provide A5 an unfair positioning advantage on the court."
But the question now must be what if it does?
I would have liked to see the NFHS say that there is no penalty if the player who mistakenly went to the bench remains there until the next dead ball, but it is a T if he returns during playing action as it is classified as an unsporting foul.