[mlancast]

Suppose player A1 gets a rebound, loses his balance and the ball, stumbles out of bounds (ball remains in bounds), he regains his position in bounds, and then secures the ball. No one else has touched the ball. Would you call a violation on this? I can't find any rule that prohibets a player from gaining control of a live ball after stepping OOB EXCEPT Rule 9.3 which says a player cannot leave the floor for an unauthorized reason. All interpretations of this rule seem to indicate that the intent is to keep a player from INTENTIONALLY leaving the floor, and in the case above, this was NOT intentional, so I don't see that a violoation occurred. If the rule were meant for any player leaving the floor for any reason, we'd be calling violations after nearly every contested layup. Comments?