OOB touched by coach
 

Some of you may have seen the save attempt by the Milwaukee player grabbed by OKC Coach Billy Donovan. My question is this: If a ball that is on its way out of bounds is attempted to be saved by a player, but the opposing coach makes an attempt to touch the ball, what do you do?? For the sake of argument we'll assume that actions of the opposing coach (not necessarily motives) are legal, by which I mean the coach touched the ball when it was legally OOB. So if the coach clearly makes an effort to quickly touch a ball that is barely OOB, when an opposing player has a legitimate chance to save it, you got anything?

I think you meant to ask something else.

You can't have a coach touching a ball that's OOB and then have a legitimate chance to save it.

C'mon man. You and everyone else who reads this knows I meant a ball that is live but has traveled outside of the vertical boundary of the court. Don't be that guy, no one likes that guy.

No, we didn't. You said it was OOB. Then you said it wasn't. I had no idea what you were trying to say.

Well ok then, like happens way too often on this forum, it seems we have to basically go to legal speak to explain a situation. Cameron says that I said it was OOB, then I said it wasn't. Nope. You are confusing the scenario with which I derived my question, with my actual question. So allow me to clarify for the few of you who may have been confused:

If a ball that is on its way OOBs close to the opponents bench, is intentinally touched by bench personnel of the opposing team while the ball has live status outside of the vertical plane of the boundary lines, but while being pursued by the offense, is there a penalty? I realize that by the book there may be nothing, but does anyone consider this an unsporting act if the officials clearly determine that the coach (or whoever) touched the ball in an effort to neutralize an opponents clear advantage?

If you're saying the coach lunged to intercept the ball which kept the player from making a play, I think you have no trouble calling a T. If the coach is standing legally in the box and catches the ball rather than let it hit him, I think you have nothing. He is not obligated to do a fancy athletic move to avoid the ball or the player making the play.

Just a suggestion: Look at your original post.

1. We didn't write that, you did.

2. The line itself made any question from that point on moot since the ball was already OOB meaning there would be no reason to penalize the coach. If you presented it this way to an assignor or a rule interpreter they probably would have had the same reaction as Dad and Camron. We're officials. Being Type A is kind of what we do.

Baseline Or Endline ...
 

This is a forum for basketball officials. Almost everything we discus here is about something being legal, or illegal.

I'll rephrase the question because I think it's an interesting one:

What, if anything, can a coach legally do to touch a ball which has not yet touched out of bounds but is in flight over out of bounds when an opposing player is actively making a play to maintain the in-bounds status of the ball?

There's a large part of 2-3 in this situation.

For me, I don't make the coach move, but I also don't allow the coach to move from his/her current position to touch the ball or to get in the way of the player chasing the ball.

For the record, I was confused, too.

Words have meaning. Articulation matters, especially when you're painting a picture.

I'm in the Navy. Imagine me calling the Captain of my ship in the middle of the night when I'm on watch and saying one of the following two things:

1. "Captain, there's a ship over there, port side, I see a green light, he seems like he's moving pretty fast, but I'm going to hold my course and speed; we're going to come pretty close to each other."

OR

2. "Captain, I'm on course 020, speed 16. I have a contact at 320 relative, target angle 060. Contact's course and speed is 090, 18 knots. Closest point of approach will be 1000 yards on the bow. I hold this to be a crossing situation and we are the stand-on vessel. My intention is to hold my course and speed; I have contacted the master of the vessel on radio and he has agreed to come to starboard and pass astern of me. I'll continue to track and report."

Ignoring some of the maritime lingo you're probably not familiar with, which set of words do you think paints a better picture for the Captain, who would probably be pretty PO'd if he had to come up to the bridge in his pajamas at 3am because of uncertainty?

Did I mention that words and articulation matter? Don't be lackadaisical in your descriptions on this forum and then get indignant when you're challenged. That's JV.

Is this your response when a partner or supervisor is confused by your explanation when you haven't properly articulated it?

You actually had time to sit and think this out before hitting send. What are you like when you only have a few minutes in the locker room, or a supervisor calls you on the phone needing a concise description of a play or call?

Ok, I can accept the criticism on the wording issues, and will look to make a scenario more clear in future descriptions. As for the play of interest, as described by Eastshire, would anyone consider a tech? Probably a had to be there situation, I'm just curious of the justification to make that call.

If the coach reached for the ball AND an opponent had any chance to make a play, sure. If he is just standing there in a spot where a coach can legally stand and the ball hits the coach, no.

Whether it is in over the OOB area or not is irrelevant.