Well, the court diagram indicates there should be 3 feet. There clearly wasn't. The intent/purpose is for the thrower to have a reasonable amount of room for the throwin. What would you suggest?

Again without having looked at the play, I would suggest the following. Issue a warning to the KU player if and when he first violates the throw in plane. Issue a class B technical foul to the KU player if this was not their first violation. Call a FF1 if, as a previous poster suggested, there was contact with the player making the throw in. Issue a class B technical foul if the KU player touched or dislodged the ball while it was on the out of bounds side of the line. What I would not do in an NCAA-M game is prevent the defensive player from positioning himself right up to the sideline. I would not be concerned in the least that the OU player did not have 3 feet of space, and I would certainly not use rule 2-3 to justify the actions of a partner if he did so.

Clearly we have 3 tired referees and it takes a lot of endurance to referee to the end. That is the biggest lesson here.

Maybe this isnt smart yet this is what I do. If I see a kid coming close to that plane I tell him "hands" or "back" because no one likes the call of DG. If he interferes with the pass because he breaks the plane and I dont know for 100% that it will go to the right team I blow my whistle and call it.

I would like to ask honestly if any college/HS officials here hate the call and let these plane violations go and the players get worse and then in 3 OT's they are so used to letting defenders get away with this behavior their brains dont call the obvious fouls and violations. And here it really did cost a team the game.

Its a great lesson and I would love to see them double the staff at the college level. So that we do not have older vets do so many games and getting mentally and physically tired and affecting games. Just my opinion dont squish me... lol

We can hate calls all we want, but it's not our job to pick which rules we do and don't want to call.

I have no issues giving a verbal warning, but if players don't want to listen then they can have a violation. Normally anything below varsity, I'll throw a line at the coach after reporting it so he also has a chance to tell his players to not get a T.

I have seen case 9.2.10A ignored several times. This is about the only rule regarding boundary-plane infractions that bothers me and it's only because I've noticed quality officials not knowing about it. Or they just claim not to know it and don't want to correctly make a call on a defensive player getting an advantage they shouldn't.

Officials ignore the defender knocking the ball out of the hands of the thrower-in?

If it interferes with the thrower's efforts to make a throw-in. I never said they ignored the specific play you stated.

9.2.10 SITUATION A:

A1 is out of bounds for a throw-in. B1 reaches through the boundary plane and knocks the ball out of A1's hands. Team B has not been warned previously for a throw-in plane infraction.

Ahh, sorry, my bad. I only remember the case for the comment and didn't recall the start of it. I was referring to the five seconds or less in the game while the clock is running. In which case you let a violation go unless it interferes with the thrower's efforts to make a throw-in. Then it's a T whether there was a previous violation or not.

So when I saw this: Controversy brewing over final Oklahoma inbounds play - ESPN Video I came straight here to ask the rules gurus...

And before this thread goes off on another tangent, lets ignore the fact that Mason was probably breaking the throw-in plane. Not contesting that.

Where in the rules book does it say that Mason has to give Hield three feet in that situation?

And ignore my screen name. I'm a referee first and a fan second.

Remember what I posted earlier. A warning - and when I see "warning" I interpret "official warning" - isn't on the menu in NCAAM. B1 just continues to be called for violations until the "repeated violation" threshold of the rule is reached, then a Class B technical is issued. I would think what constitutes "repeated" has been communicated to the NCAAM's officials in the group.

The specifications for a legal court require that there be at least 3 feet of space outside of the boundary.

Since that situation is not all that uncommon at the HS level, the HS rules cover the situation by instructing the official to designate a temporary boundary line 3' inbounds from the actual boundary line that remains in effect until the ball crosses that line. All throwin rules apply to the new boundary line until such time.


The NCAA rules seem to be silent on what to do when there isn't 3-feet of space outside of the boundary.


There are two possibilities as far as I can tell:

Either there is nothing that can be done....which means the official doesn't even have the authority to back the defender away from the line even at the start of the throwin. That also implies that if the space is so small that the thrower can't fit his/her feet in the space that is available OOB without also being inbounds, no legal throwin would be possible and you'd be in an infinite loop as each team kept violating their throwin.

Or, there is an implied expectation that the official can back the defender up to start the throwin and give the thrower the intended amount of space. If so, that also implies a temporary boundary for the purposes of the throwin that remains in effect at least until the throwin is released.


I suggest that while the rules do not state what to do at all when the 3' minimum space OOB is not met, that gives the R the authority to use 2-3 and decide what to do. Doing nothing really doesn't make any sense nor fit with the spirit of the game. As such, designating a temporary boundary line that persists until the throw is released is the only resolution that makes any sense.

In every NCAAM conference I work, the warning in this case is the violation called for the first offense. Repeated means on the second violation, the player is getting a class B technical foul.

Works for me. If that's the case for the majority of conferences the men might as well go to the women's wording of the rule.

I also believe this is a coaching thing too. Maybe not in this exact situation, but similar.

Why do I as a ref have to point on to a player throwing the ball in that he/she can step back further to give yourself space. They are like, wait, what? I can? Are you sure? Yes step back and then you'll have plenty of space to throw in.

Why don't coaches make this very well understood to their teams. Also to not reach over the line during throw ins etc. It's just so frustrating that the players have coaches that are not explaining and teaching these basics.

Hard to back up when you butt is against a table.