I guess I need 
(sarcasm) (/sarcasm) tags from now on 

  But yes, I was being sarcastic.
I'm not 100% sure about the first situation, but I believe in NCAA you can't sub on an indavertant whistle or abnormal stoppage in play. (Of course, it has been 3 seasons since I've done stats on a long term basis on the NCAA level, so I'm a bit rusty on recent rule changes there).
The official said we could only sub during dead balls... 

 Although I got him to concede the ball was dead while the home team fixed the scoreboard controller, he wasn't going to let our sub in at all. 
 
I do think 5 in the lane is an NCAA rule as well... definitely an NBA rule.