2021 NFHS Questionnaire

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Implementing the “No Jump Ball” rule to start the game, with some form of alternating-possession protocol.
Eliminating the jump ball and beginning the game with the visiting team receiving the ball and using alternating possession the rest of the contest.

Yes and yes. Don't even consider a coin toss. Keep it simple. Road team always gets to bat first.

Hey Mark T. DeNucci, Sr. How do you like them apples?

The jump ball is as outdated as laced basketballs, peach baskets, and chicken wire cages around the perimeter of the court. For generations of players and fans they are a forgettable anachronistic formality. Coaches bemoan inconsistency in officials tossing the ball, and unevenly governed rules about the movement of players during the jump ball (how many officials start the game by incorrectly stating "Don't move" to all the players?), and some officials are weary of policing these microbursts of mayhem.

Now that we only have about one jump ball per game, many officials (players and coaches) don't know the rules as well as we knew them back in ancient times. Back in ancient times every official knew all the permutations of the jump ball rules, before the toss, after the toss, after the tip, jumpers, nonjumpers on the circle, non jumpers off the circle, backwards, forwards, inside out, and upside down. Officials had to know these jump ball restrictions because in some games you could have dozens of jump balls, in three different jump ball circles: the jump ball to start the game, each period, overtime periods, and all situations where we now use the alternating possession arrow to adjudicate (held balls, etc.). Officials, players, and coaches all knew the jump ball rules, some coaches even had different jump ball plays for each of the three jump ball circles depending on whether one expected to win or lose the jump ball.

How well do otherwise very good officials know, understand, and adjudicate the jump ball rules today? Only memorizing and adjudicating the most egregious violations (ball touched on the way up, ball touched three times by jumper, ball caught by jumper), especially in a two person game, often ignoring (or not being able to fully observe) all eight nonjumpers (and the two jumpers)?

How can the non-tossing official (two person game) accurately and realistically observe (with peripheral vision) all eight nonjumpers (and often the two jumpers) for violations, especially when jump ball rules are so complex (and we only see a jump ball about once a game), especially the seldom called violations (those other than ball touched on the way up, ball touched three times by jumper, ball caught by jumper), when such violations happen in a split second, keeping in mind that some have described jump balls as microbursts of mayhem.

It's the twentieth-first century. We now have alternating possession arrows. The alternating possession arrow was invented by some genius for a good reason, so let's get rid of all jump balls, give the ball to the visitors (neutral court: lower seeded team, usually wearing dark jerseys, usually visitor on scoreboard) to start the game, and use the possession arrow for the rest of the game, including overtimes.