Fight
 

Wasn't in the game, but happened close to home. Tell me how you would penalize and resume play. A fellow official and I have been in the book, discussed and can't nail it down.

5o seconds left: A1 is intentionally fouled by B1. After the foul, 4 members from team A come out onto the floor, 2 members of team B come off the bench, and 1 of those from team B participates in the fight.

How do you proceed?

We are confused about a couple things. First of all, does team B head coach receive two technical fouls? One for the fighting, one for the other coming off the bench?

Who gets free throws and how many? Team A had more members off the bench, but team B had a member fight. So do they cancel out? If so, how could one coach get two indirect Ts (if that's correct), the other only get one, but you have no free throws?

Anyway, if anyone knows for sure feel free to help us out.

A1 will get his two shots and A will get the ball at the spot nearest the foul by B1.

A would get 2 fts for the B member fighting, B would get two for having more players leave the bench. I'm canceling the FTs out and just going with A1's.

A's coach gets one indirect T. B's coach gets 2.

My question, were the bench players the only ones fighting?

This is exactly how I'm handling it.

I'm convinced that many officials spend little time on fight administration and hope that it never happens to them.

Bench member on court, When is thst not a disqualification?

Everyone leaving the bench gets a flagrant technical whether they participate or not. That's a given. We're talking about administration afterwards, though.

Yes just one bench player from B. He went after A player who was intentionally fouled.

Forgot to add, but I knew these cancelled out anyway; A1 (who was intentionally fouled) and B1 (who committed the intentional foul) received double technicals after intentional foul. This caused the players to clear bench.

Ok, so then we have order of occurrence.

IPF FTs first shot by A1's substitute.

Then four TFTs for Team B (because Team A had two extra team members involved) followed by ball at division line.

One indirect to Coach A (for any number of players leaving the bench who do not participate) and two for Coach B (one for the same reason as above plus one for each fight participant, which in this case was one). So both coaches sit but can stay....for now.

Why does A1 have a substitute? He just got one technical foul. He wasn't ejected.

You had;

B1 intentionally foul A1

A1 and B1 chest up-double T's. (no ejection, just unsporting)

4 players off A bench come on the floor, 2 players off B bench come on the floor, one of those 2 B bench members participates.

I THINK, that the number of players leaving the bench decides if FTs are shot even if one of the players leaving the bench also participated in the fight. There is a case play in Rule 10 where A6,A7 and B6 and B7 leave the bench. B7 is only one who participates in the fight. play says because the number of players leaving bench is equal no FTs. Coach A gets indirect for his players leaving bench and Coach B gets two indirects, one for players leaving the bench and one for the player leaving and fighting. So it looks like there will be no FTs if the number leaving bench is same. coach just gets more indirects. This follows the wording at the end of rule 10. "if the number leaving the bench is equal/unequal…"

In shooters play from the original post---A will shoot the 2 FTS for the intentional foul. B will then get 2 FTS for team A having more players leave bench. Team B will take the ball out at division line opposite table. Coach of team A will get one indirect for his kids leaving bench. Coach of B gets two indirects. One for player leaving bench and not fighting and one on other for fighting. Again I THINK this is right…. it is confusing,,,

Yes it is, we talked about it for about 30 minutes and couldn't figure out exactly what the right thing to do would be. What makes it confusing is one team violates worse by having more off the bench, but the other violates worse by having a player participate in a fight.

Yes. the team with more off the bench gives up two FTs. the team with less players leaving bench, but some fighting penalizes the coach more. that's how i read it.

Once they have one (or 2), they learn real quickly what they did wrong. I thought I had it down, but I still screwed it up.

The only real decision is whether or not you shoot free throws for the fight Ts. I think I'd err on not shooting them, because that's the direction I was given many years ago when I had a fight. Try to simplify as much as possible so you aren't walking back and forth shooting free throws when you should get the game moving ASAP.

If you shoot, I'd say your final FTs should be for the player who actually came off the bench to shoot since that seems to have been the last event.

And who in the hell did that bench player fight? That kid deserves extra credit for not fighting back.

That would be me...LOL

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I don't have my book here, but I'm pretty sure the FTs would be shot in this play. I'd like to see that case play, though. I'm pretty sure I got it right.

Look at 10.5.5 Sit A © and 10.5.5 E when you get home. In both plays the teams have the same number of players leave bench. In both, one of the B players also fights. No A player fights. Rulings are no FTS cause number leaving bench same.

In this play someone will shoot the intentional foul shots for A1 and then team B gets two for A having more players leave bench. I don't think there's FTs for A because of B6 participating in fight. His coach gets another indirect though. thx

I will, thanks. Interesting, because the penalties are from different rules.

This could be a HTBT situation, but I can't see a scenario where A1 doesn't get flagrant and tossed. Even if he doesn't throw a puch, the "chesting up" T described in the scenario should be considered a fighting act, and both A1 and B1 should be tossed, in addition to all bench personnel who came onto the court.

On a separate note, has there ever been a discussion of a rules change that would not require bench personnel coming onto the court to be ejected automatically? I understand the intent is to not add more people to the fight, but for those that run onto the court, you're getting tossed anyways, why not take a swing at a kid, and get all you can out of that ejection? Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for this, but it seems a stiff penalty when non-fight participants are reacting on positive instincts to break up a fight, especially when the penalty for trying to help or being an instigator is identical.

Ha. Agree.

The penalry for participating in the fight is extra FTs for each additional player. So there is a higher penalty for participating.

I meant for the kid being ejected the penalty is the same for that kid, but you're right, and that's a good point, it penalizes his team more, which is additional incentive to not actually partake.

I would add that for 17 year old kids, their first instinct is not to break up the fight. Not for the majority of them anyway. That's why the NFHS wants them to just stay on the bench.

Plus your coach, school, league, state, parents may invoke additional penalties

1 Technical whether 1 bench personnel or 4 leave bench and don't fight
 

Rule 10, Section 4 Bench Technical:

ART. 5 . . . Leave the confines of the bench during a fight or when a fight may break out.
NOTE: The head coach may enter the court in the situation where a fight may break out – or has broken out – to prevent the situation from escalating.

PENALTY: (Art. 5) Flagrant foul, disqualification of individual offender, but only one technical-foul penalty is administered regardless of the number of offenders. This one foul is also charged indirectly to the head coach. If the head coach is an offender, an additional flagrant technical foul is charged directly to the coach and penalized. When a simultaneous technical foul(s) by opponents occurs, the free throws are not awarded when the penalties offset.

I think all states do.

I know this parent would.

I am making the assumption that if B6 came off the bench and "participated in the fight," that A1 and B1's Ts were both flagrant for fighting themselves.

No, there has not, and there never will be. NCAA enforces this the same way. You come off, you're done for the night. Period. Good coaches teach this discipline so that if a fight ever does happen, the players instinctively stay where they are. And this is also where good assistant coaches can be worth their weight in gold keeping players on the bench.

You don't need me to tell you this, but NCAA does this the same way. With good reason. Limit the chaos via the threat of severe penalty.

I've had two legitimate fights and I find that the hardest thing to do is say with certainty who came off the bench. NCAA gets monitor review in some cases. NFHS and smaller college games have no such luxury. When a fight breaks out your attention is drawn to the fight, not the bench. It's really hard to get it right.

I think 4-18-2 covers this. If it was unsporting enough for a T, and a fight broke out because of it, it deserves to be flagrant.

I'm not sure. If the actions cause an immediate retaliation, sure. If 6 idiots on the bench can't help themselves, that's on the coaching.

It also speaks to the overall mood of the game. This likely didn't just come out of nowhere.

The purpose of the rule is to punish unsporting behavior that causes a fight. If they don't chest up to each other six other players stay on their own benches. They need to just walk away from each other and play ball if they can't handle the consequences.