Excessive time-out granted, but...

[Mike Goodwin]

Three scenarios follow these rules excerpts (of which other rules may be applicable, but are not included):

Rule 5-11-1... Three, 60-second and two, 30-second time-outs may be charged to each team during a regulation game. Each team is entitled to one additional, 60-second time-out during each extra period. Unused time-outs accumulate and may be used at any time.


Rule 2-11... The scorer shall: ART. 6... Record the time-out information charged to each team (who and when) and notify a team and its coach, through an official, whenever that team is granted its final allotted charged time-out.


Rule 2-7... The officials shall conduct the game in accordance with the rules. This includes: ART. 12... Notifying the head coach when a team is granted its final allowable time-out.


Rule 5-11-6... Time-outs in excess of the allotted number may be requested and shall be granted during regulation playing time or any extra period at the expense of a technical foul for each, as in 10-2-3.


Situation A: With 2:05 remaining in the fourth quarter, Team A requests and an official grants the team its final allotted time-out. The scorer fails to notify any official. Play resumes following the time-out. With :44 seconds to go in the period, Team A requests and an official grants the team a time-out. The scorer then informs an official the latest time-out is an excess time-out. The official charges the team with a technical foul (10-2-3) to be administered after the completion of the time-out. Is the official correct, Y/N? If not, why not?


Situation B: With 1:33 remaining in the fourth quarter, Team A requests and an official grants the team its final allotted time-out. The scorer notifies an official, but no official notifies the head coach. Play resumes following the time-out. With :28 seconds to go in the period, Team A requests and an official grants the team a time-out. The scorer then informs an official the latest time-out is an excess time-out. The official charges the team with a technical foul (10-2-3) to be administered after the completion of the time-out. Is the official correct, Y/N? If not, why not?


Situation C: with :35 seconds remaining in overtime, Team B has requested and an official granted the team its final allotted time-out. The official properly notified the head coach in accordance with Rule 2-12-7. During the throw-in by B2 following the time-out, Team A applies heavy defensive pressure. To avoid a 5-second throw-in violation, Team B's head coach and/or B2 requests a time-out. The official ignores the request. Is the official correct, Y/N? If not, why not?

(Inspired by a similar post on a FB page.)

Discuss & debate!

[bob jenkins]

The official is correct in the first two, and not correct (by rule) in the second. Failure of the scorer / officials to follow the instructions given does NOT absolve the team of it's requesting an excess TO.

TOs requested (at a valid time) should be granted -- heck, maybe the coach wants the T for some reason. In practice, if I think it was an error, I might not "hear" the first request

[Raymond]

Nothing really to debate on the first situations, they are excessive time-out requests that were granted.

Situation #3, I might reach my 5-second count before realizing they requested a time-out.

[BillyMac]

Agree with both bob jenkins and Raymond that failure of the scorer and/or officials to notify the head coach when a team is granted its final allowable time-out does not absolve the team from being charged with a technical foul for requesting and being granted time-outs in excess of the allotted number.

Failure of the scorer and/or officials to notify the head coach when a team is granted its final allowable time-out is certainly not a correctable error, nor does it seem to be recognized as any type of "mistake" that can be corrected.

I could not come up with any citation for this specific situation, but I did come up with a citation that tells us when to charge the technical foul:

2007-08 Basketball Rules Interpretations SITUATION 11: A1 requests and is granted an excessive time-out. The excessive time-out is discovered (a) immediately; (b) when A1 has the ball at his/her disposal for a throw-in following the time-out; (c) during a dead ball after three minutes have elapsed off the game clock. RULING: In (a), (b) and (c), assess a team technical foul to Team A for the excessive time-out. Team B is awarded two free throws and the ball for a division line throw-in. The penalty for an excessive time-out is assessed when discovered. (10-1-7 Penalty)

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

I could not come up with any citation for this specific situation ...

How about it Nevadaref, time to work your interpretations/casebook magic?

[BillyMac]

New situation. Tie game. With 0:52 remaining in the fourth quarter, Team A requests and an official grants the team its final allotted timeout, a thirty second timeout. The scorer notifies an official of such. Official attempts to notify the Team A head coach that Team A has been granted its final allowable timeout, but the Team A head coach is already buried deep in the middle of the Team A timeout huddle frantically drawing up a play and explaining the play to his players. While still early in the timeout, official pulls Team A assistant coach, who is on on the fringe of the huddle not speaking, aside and notifies the assistant coach that Team A has been granted its final allowable timeout, asking him to inform both the head coach and players.

What's best?

1) Notifying a non-head coach adult, who is on on the fringe of the huddle not speaking, early in the timeout so that the information can be communicated to the entire team, possibly for strategy, before the timeout ends. Of course, by rule, this isn't kosher.

2) The official digs his way into the huddle and notifies the head coach early in the timeout so that the information can be communicated to the entire team, possibly for strategy, before the timeout ends, but distracts the head coach from his (limited) thirty second timeout strategy play calling huddle with his players.

3) Notifying a head coach immediately after the timeout ends, possibly after the players have already left the bench area and are already walking out onto the court.

Possibly complicating matters is that officials really want to get together to discuss their roles in the final fifty-two seconds of the game, as well as having a short chat with the table crew to make sure that everything is copacetic on their end.

Further complicating matters is that the noise level of the cheerleaders, pep band, and fans in the gym is off the charts.

[bob jenkins]

1 or 3. NOT 2.

In 3, I don't really care that the players might have left -- there's still plenty of time for the coach to yell the info to them before the ball becomes live.

[Raymond]

1 AND 3.

Not mutually exclusive.

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[JRutledge]

#1 if they are reliable to talk to.

#3 if I have time or remember. Likely talking to partners so that might not ultimately happen depending on the conversation with partners.

Again I think we worry about this too much. If you know and have time tell them. But they have 80 coaches, someone should know their timeout situation or knows how to find out. This is not an issue with good and experienced coaching staffs.

Peace

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

NOT 2.

Originally Posted by Raymond

1 AND 3. Not mutually exclusive.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

#1 if they are reliable to talk to. #3 if I have time or remember. Likely talking to partners so that might not ultimately happen depending on the conversation with partners.

Looks like we've got some consensus here.

Nobody, including me, is going to dig one's way deep into the huddle and distract the head coach from setting up a play with his players, just to satisfy the notification rule.

And yet, I've seen officials give this a try like they're digging for gold.

Notify an assistant coach early, as soon as possible (of course, by rule, this isn't kosher).

Possibly later, if one has the time, after fulfilling one's other duties, followup and confirm the notification with the head coach at the end of the timeout.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Again I think we worry about this too much.

Here in my little corner of Connecticut, timeout procedures have been obsessively taught by four different interpreters over forty years as if something really really "bad" happened back in ancient times.

1) Never "bump" the timeout from the granting official to a partner closer to the table. Never. Ever. Under any circumstances. Doesn't matter how far away one is from the reporting area.

2) Only tell a head coach when they have used their final allotted timeout. Never tell a coach how many timeouts they have left, except for the final allotted timeout. Never. Ever. Under any circumstances. Doesn't matter that one wants to be courteous to the head coach to build rapport and gain his vote for the state tournament.

Something tells me that one, or both, of these two guidelines were't followed sometime in the very distant past with disastrous results, which is why our local trainers have been so obsessive about teaching these guidelines over the years.

[JRutledge]

We are have been told here, that when we have the horn warning, stay there with the teams until they come out. So if we are standing right there, when they break out of it we can communicate what we need to at that time. Heck, I have even said to them at that time, "You guys are out of timeouts." Again a lot is the vibe of the game, the relationship I have with the coaches of that team and what I talked to my partners about.

But most of the time coaches when you ask them "What kind of timeout coach?" They usually say, "I only have.......left anyway." So they know, we just verify that information. But as stated you do not have to knock yourself out to give them the information they are clearly aware of already.

Peace

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Looks like we've got some consensus here.

Nobody, including me, is going to dig one's way deep into the huddle and distract the head coach from setting up a play with his players, just to satisfy the notification rule.

And yet, I've seen officials give this a try like they're digging for gold.

Notify an assistant coach early, as soon as possible (of course, by rule, this isn't kosher).
....

Who decided this isn't kosher? I've only got one person ever object to me telling an assistant coach, and he was an a-hole high school interpreter who didn't like college officials.

I very easily do both. I tell an assistant early and I tell the head coach afte ther huddle breaks before the ball becomes live. It does absolutely nothing to interfere with their time out or the flow of the game.


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[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Raymond

Who decided this isn't kosher? ... I very easily do both. I tell an assistant early and I tell the head coach after their huddle breaks before the ball becomes live. It does absolutely nothing to interfere with their time out or the flow of the game.

By not kosher, I meant that just notifying the assistant coach alone, with no followup confirmation with head coach, doesn't technically fulfill the obligation, by rule, to notify the head coach, although it might fulfill the purpose and intent of the rule.

Agree with everything else.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

By not kosher, I meant that just notifying the assistant coach alone, with no followup confirmation with head coach, doesn't technically fulfill the obligation, by rule, to notify the head coach, although it might fulfill the purpose and intent of the rule.

Agree with everything else.

Well, since I explicitly stated I do follow-up, I'm not understanding how it got applied to my post.

You're the one who alluded to only "possibly" notifying the head coach. You suggested to do something that isn't kosher: "Possibly later, if one has the time, after fulfilling one's other duties, followup and confirm the notification with the head coach at the end of the timeout." You've rewritten my response to fit your pre-determined narrative. When a team has used its last time-out, one of our duties is to notify the head coach. What other duty during a time-out trumps notifying the coach?

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Never "bump" the timeout from the granting official to a partner closer to the table. Never. Ever. Under any circumstances. Doesn't matter how far away one is from the reporting area.

A possible problem here is that it can take a granting lead official and put him back on an endlne (some immediately, some at the warning buzzer) after reporting the timeout (no switching on timeouts). Did the reporting official notify the coach that he used his final allotted timeout, or did he choose not to dig into the huddle? Is a followup confirmation with the head coach after the timeout needed by the non-granting official, now at the division line near the table?

Over the years, almost all my partners that granted a timeout and were informed by the table that final allotted timeout had been taken, have only communicated to me that the team had used it's final allotted timeout, and not that the head coach had, or had not, been notified.

Seems a better mechanic to allow "bumping" from the granting official to a partner closer to the table (if not the same official). This puts all the notification responsibility on one official who can best decide when (or how) to notify the head coach.

Just spitballing here.