Last night I had a game where a player was somewhat trapped on the sideline in front of his own bench, and right as the coach yelled for a timeout, the defender made a dumb play and hacked the kid's arm. So the yelling of "Timeout!" and the whistle for the foul came one after another. Well the bench players from that team heard the timeout request, heard the whistle, and reasonably thought a timeout had been called and granted, and all 8 or so of them started clapping and walking onto the court ready to high 5 their teammates as they came back to the bench for the timeout that as it turns out wasn't actually granted. The opposing coach started clamoring for a technical, but we passed and explained the confusion.
I think we handled it just fine, as the players walking out on the court in no way interfered with game play, though I think there are some out there who might have thrown a technical their way anyways. Thoughts?
|