I've had it happen. Not much you can do.

What Do You Mean "Are We In The Bonus?" ...
 

Low level Catholic middle school game. Parent coerced into keeping score as a last minute replacement. We didn't discover until the middle of the fourth period (when we figured that we should be in the bonus for at least one team) that she was only keeping track of total team fouls, not team fouls by half, and not individual player fouls. We pieced together definite known team fouls for each team that half, told her to start keeping track of individual player fouls, and moved on.

You had it happen more than once to this extent? After it happened the first time did you adjust how you would handle situations in the future?

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A couple of thoughts:

• Often there is another book (or 2) in use. It might be a parent in the stands or an assistant coach. If so, find it and see what it says. Your have the authority (Rule 2-11-11) to use other information you deem reliable if there is a problem with the official book. I had that this weekend at a kids tournament: scoreboard and official book (kept by the same high school kid working for the venue) showed 7th foul. Each team had an adult keeping a book and they both showed 6 fouls. I decided they were correct.
• Get the coaches together and see if they can agree. If they do, then all set. If not, you tried one more thing to fix the error.
• On an ongoing basis, check with the scorer about team fouls. I don't like to be told "1 more to the bonus." I ask how many fouls on each time. Same with timeouts. Tell me how many they have used -- and I will do the math to figure out how many are left.

Piggybacking on what others have said about court awareness. At a college camp, a clinician told us that it did not matter that there was no scoreboard, no visible clock and only a kid at the table. It was our job to know the exact time and score at the end of the game -- and be prepared to adjudicate last second shots, etc. No excuses. It's our job.

Keep It Simple ...
 

I don't need all this information. I only need to know when they've used their final timeout, and when they use any additional timeouts.

Sorry, no, it's happened to me once. Now I *try* to remember to check the book at half time to see how many fouls there were in the first half. If it's a scorer I don't recognize, I'll remind them to start counting the 2nd half fouls.

I make sure the scoreboard count jibes with my memory. If I think something is askew I will have the book verify.