Shame on the officials twice:
- First for allowing the ball to be put in play with 6 people on the court
- Second for not calling the T
When I wave in subs, I always keep my hand raised (open palm) to let my partner know I'm not ready for a live ball yet. I take a quick count of the number of players, and when I have 10...5 from each team...not 6 and 4
, I lower my hand, and we're ready to continue play.
I had a similar situation a few years ago. It was during a kids rec league game, we had a T for a player not being listed in the official book. Turns out that the team had 11 players on the bench, but only 10 listed. I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think it's safe to say that most people (again, not everyone), don't count the number of players for rec league ball. I always do for high school, but not youth league stuff. Anyway, I tell the coach we're going to have a T on his team for a player not listed. He says to me, "But aren't you supposed to verify the number of players prior to the start?" I told him "Yes coach I am...but as the head coach you're the one still ultimately responsible for getting all of your players listed in the book." Fortunately he agreed and left it at that. Shame on me for not counting the players, but we still ended up giving the T, as should have been done here with the 6 players on the court.