Bookkeeping Predicament

[BayStateRef]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

So I go back to my original question of "What do you do?" for which I have not yet received any professional opinions or rule/case citations.

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.