Rule question from coach

[Scrapper1]

Originally Posted by BlueDevilRef

It was still around when I was in school and I'm now 36.

Really?? I'm almost positive that it hasn't been used since I've been officiating. (I started in '92).

Can someone enlighten us to what the purpose of it was?

It's for jump balls. If there was a held ball in the free throw lane, for example, there was no AP arrow, so they had a jump ball. And rather going to center court, they would have the jump ball in the circle around the free throw line.

But the Alternating Possession procedure has been around -- I think -- since I started officiating in '92. So if you had the dotted semi-circle, it was just because your high school was too cheap to re-paint your court.

[Rob1968]

1985 NFHS adopted the "alternating possession" throw-in for all jump or held-ball situations except the start of the game and each extra period.

[BlueDevilRef]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

So if you had the dotted semi-circle, it was just because your high school was too cheap to re-paint your court.

I would say this is most correct sir. And it's possible I'm not remembering the high school floor as much as the smaller middle school floor where all my glory days took place.


I wish I had a cool signature

[Freddy]

Originally Posted by BlueDevilRef

. . . the smaller middle school floor . . .

Many of which still have that old small circle inside the center circle. And there are still occasionally officials who tell the jumpers they've gotta each have at least one foot inside that smaller circle.

[so cal lurker]

Dang, this is making me feel old . . . when I was in middle school, I remember a gym that still had the old key shaped key painted on it because it had never been refinished . . . and two mid-court lines because it was too short -- does the rule book still have the rules for the those short courts with two lines?