[Amesman]

Wondering what might have been a better fix for a mess we got in last night when a player fouled out and my partner began administering the 2 FTs before we got the new player in.

In a nutshell: As lead, I call the hack, report to the table, which notifies me it was B1's fifth. I take a few steps to tell B Coach (the far bench), then notify timer to start the 20-second count, then turn to make sure player is notified and to my surprise, see A1 shooting her first FT ... just before I reflexively raised my stop sign and whistle. (She missed.)

We get B1's sub in, I confer with my partner, asking if he was administering a 1-and-1 or what. No, it's 2, he assures, apologizing for getting ahead of himself (he's not a first-year but fairly inexperienced).

All the while, A1's teammates are (all 4) huddled near the sideline, getting instructions from their coach. Partner and I determine the first FTA (a miss) came before my whistle, so it stands and we announce "1 free throw."

Partner hesitates a few moments because A1's teammates are still huddled near the 28-foot line with coach. But we've announced 1 FTA left (both of us signaling "1" from our positions) so I motion to him to administer it.

It was about a five-point game with about a minute to go and it honestly seemed like A's coach was simply taking every moment he could to fill his team with more knowledge, just wanting them to drop back on defense since they were winning.

A1 makes the second FTA and then A Coach realizes B is inbounding. He yells for his team to get back on D and they do so in time. But after a made bucket, Team A requests, and is granted, a TO.

A Coach is somewhat hot and wants either another FTA or even a TF because Team B had an "illegal" player on the court because B1 didn't come out for the first FTA.

I told him it was not a correctable error (all merited FTs had been granted) and that a "retro" TF doesn't happen (if not because it was our error in not getting the fouled-out player off the floor, it also wasn't a "correctable" situation regardless).

He wasn't happy but his team wound up winning by the same margin as when this started. The entire incident, thankfully, was inconsequential toward the outcome.

Other than "not letting that happen," what could we have done differently once we were in this soup? It seemed like A's coach was aware there was just 1 FTA left and chose not to have his players on the lane. Should we have re-shot the first FTA immediately, or any other time?