If I may be so bold, here's the conclusion for NCAA-M games. This email came directly from Art Hyland and the ruling will be included in next year's case book.
For NFHS, I would have said that I also had a definitive ruling, but in looking at the PENALTY section of 9-2, I'm not so sure.
NFHS 9-2-2 says that "The ball shall be passed by the thrower directly into the court from out-of-bounds so it touches or is touched by another player (inbounds or out of bounds) on the court before going out of bounds untouched."
[Complete off-topic question: why are there hyphens in "from out-of-bounds" but no hyphens in "inbounds or out of bounds"? I would never have noticed it except that I just typed it out
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Ok, so prior to today, I would have stated with 100% confidence that a throw-in pass that was caught by a player who was standing out of bounds (out-of-bounds?) would be put back in play at the spot where it was caught. After all, the inbounder did his job. He threw the ball so that it touched a player out of bounds before it went out-of-bounds untouched. The violation must have been committed by the player who caught the ball, and so that's where the ball would be put back in play.
Today, however, after reading the PENALTY section that follows 9-2, I'm not so sure. It reads as follows:
Notice that the penalty applies to the entirety of Section 2. So this now seems to say to me that the ball goes to the original throw-in spot, regardless of who causes the violation.
Thoughts?