Held Ball or Travel?

[RefBob]

Originally Posted by just another ref

It is not that unusual, particularly at lower levels, for a defender to be in the face of a shooter and not touch the ball at all, and the shooter returns to the floor holding the ball. With this in mind, it's certainly not hard to imagine that a brief touch which would not be a held ball can disconcert the shooter to return to the floor holding the ball.

Again, this was pretty much my play exactly. At the time, it really seemed to be a stretch to call a held ball on a relatively slight glancing hit of the ball by the defender. To call a held ball seems to me to be relying more on the response of the offensive player (was it strong or weak) and less on the action of the defense (was it a pin of the ball).

[VaTerp]

I think that those saying this is a held ball 99% of the time are overlooking that the OP said girls middle school game and our applying that percentage estimate to varsity level games.

I havent worked a girls middle school game in a long time but I do coach my 8 year old daughters team and this sort of thing will happen.

As described in the OP and subsequent posts Im confident the travel violation was the right call here.