Inbounds pass muffed into backcourt

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by BigCat

This will be abbreviated response. You are looking at ball location rule. Look at player control rule. A player holding or dribbling the ball has player control. There are two plays/rules. The player dribbling the ball who steps on the line is deemed OB because he has CONTROL. Interrupted dribble play. Player steps on line, no violation cause no control. These are actually in the rules as opposed to case book. Those plays are just as much about control and player location than the are about inbounds/out of bounds.

Now, you know 1. the BC consists of area plus the division line. 2. Our player is dribbling ball in FC. All the way in. 3. That means team control in FC. 4. If he steps on the line while in control of the ball , holding or dribbling, he is now In BC. The two situations are about control and location. 5. He was last to touch inFC and he dribbled into BC or stepped there.

Now if dribble interrupted and ball hits line then he is not in control and while the ball may be in BC he is not in control and is therefore not touching it in BC. As you said, simply causing it to go to BC isn't enough. However, IF HE IS IN CONTROL of ball and touches the line or dribbles ball on other side of line he IS in BC. Violation in all 3

Forget I said abbreviated.��

I think the point you're missing is that, while the player clearly obtains BC location by stepping on the line, the definition ball location doesn't put the ball in the backcourt unless the player is touching the ball at that moment. So, unless the player is touching the ball, the ball will have never returned to the backcourt.

And the OOB does say it is OOB when it is under player control but it doesn't go so far as to say that is the reason. I'll concede that it is probably the same thing. However, it simply says a player who has control who steps OOB has caused the ball to be OOB. It does't say a player who has control is the same as touching the ball anywhere else. It would be nice to extend that to cover ball location in general, and maybe that really is what is desired, but that rule is specifically listed as causing an OOB violation, not redefining ball location.

As written, the rules you're referencing do not apply to this situation without at least some level of inference.