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Rick
I used to think this was a bizarre and kind of unfair rule. But then I thought of it slightly differently. That center court line becomes a type of boundary that A must respect once A crosses that boundary. A must initially have team control for it ever to become a boundary. The problem is when A loses physical custody of the ball after they have it in the front court. But since A had control at one point, it is always A's fault if they cannot retain actual physical control of the ball.
If B bats a loose ball OOB, or off A, we differentiate and don't consider it unfair to award the ball to B when they tap off A OOB. The odd thing with backcourt is that A is the only one who has this boundary line in effect. A is lucky if B merely taps backcourt without the ball touching A, because they are able to retrieve the ball. If B taps it off of A but never gets team control, that backcourt line will remain the same boundary for A and they are unlucky. But they were the ones who had and lost control, so either way, you can't call it unfair. A needs to maintain possession, or suffer the potential consequences.
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