On the closely guarded rule, does a dribbling offensive player need to be closely guarded by the same defender to maintain the count? Dribbling on the left side of a zone defense, A1 is closely guarded by B1 who has that area. A1 dribbles to her right, still tightly guarded by B1 until B1 runs into teammate B2. B2 maintains the tight defensive pressure as A1 begins to drive, where potentially B3 picks up the pressure. At all times, a player from B maintains direct pressure on the ball, and sometimes two players from B are on the ball. As team A in this scenario, one of my players did this dribble around the zone maneuver and I watched the ref drop the 5 second count each time she got a new defender, only to resume it about a second later. While we benefited (sort of - it wasn't like we broke down the defense!) from the no call, I thought that it was the wrong interpretation of the rule. If it is right, it kis one more twist that I need to explain to my players.
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