I am currently refereeing modified NCAA rules in BC Canada, and I've come up with a bit of a nightmare rules interpretation. The NCAA rules committee has changed the severity of a technical foul, so that possession of the basketball is no longer included as a penalty against the team who gets a T. Further to this, an administrative technical foul (hanging on the rim, wearing wrong jersey number, excessive timeouts, etc.) is now only a one shot penalty and does not include possession. Having said this, if a team is out of timeouts, they can "buy" one at the expense of a technical foul. But by rule if they were in possession of the ball they would not only keep the ball but get a reset on the shot clock (any foul causes a reset of the shot clock, except a double foul). This is a BIG advantage. Here's a scenario: Team A leads the game 65-63. Team A is out of timeouts. There are 45 seconds left on the game clock. Team A has the ball in their back court to throw in on their endline. In theory, they could run the shot clock down to 16 seconds (we play a 30 second shot clock), call an excessive timeout, Team B would get 1 shot as a result of the technical, Team A would get the ball back with a new shot clock, and could run out the clock unless team B fouls them. If Team A had timeouts remaining, team B could play good defence and get the ball back with a chance to win or tie the game. Now because Team A has used all of their timeouts, they are given an advantage. This really seems unfair. This seems like a HUGE advantage to give a team who has just received a technical foul. Are we going to give Team A the timeout and reset the shot clock? If so, how many excessive timeouts could Team A call excessively? 1? 2? 3?
Help in this situation would be appreciated!
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