Leaving The Court First To Touch Exceptions ...
 

For the good of the cause.

I'm not sure if we covered these two new casebook plays, or not.

Exceptions (by interpretation) have been added to first player to touch the ball after leaving and returning to the playing court for loss of team control (said player rebounds a missed try) and for an advantage obviously negated by time.

Player Out Of Bounds - Leaving The Court
9.3.3 SITUATION B: A1 and A2 set a double screen near the end line. A3 intentionally goes out of
bounds outside the end line to have the defender (B3) detained by the double screen. (a) A3
receives a pass as soon as A3 re-enters the court from A4; (b) A3 does not receive a pass and
play continues; (c) A4 continues to dribble the ball while B3 recovers defensively on A3. A3
continues to cut to get open and receives a pass from A4. RULING: In (a), the official shall call a
violation on A3 as soon as A3 touches the ball. The ball is awarded to Team B at a designated
spot nearest to where the violation occurred. In (b) and (c), no violation has occurred and play
continues; In (c), any advantage that was gained by A3 going out of bounds was no longer in
effect when A3 received the pass from A4.

9.3.3 SITUATION C: A1 and A2 set a double screen near the end line. B3 intentionally goes out of
bounds outside the end line to avoid being detained by A1 and A2. Just as B3 goes out of
bounds, A3's try is in flight. RULING: No violation for the defense leaving the court to avoid a
screen since team control ended on the try even if B3 is the first player to touch the ball when
returning to the court

Sit B part c does not mesh with the rule as currently written in the NFHS book. There is no consideration of time elapsed for this violation.

Sit C has the correct ruling, but for the wrong reason. The try has nothing to do with this action. There simply is no longer a rule preventing a defender from leaving the court to avoid a screen.

Agreed with St B, part (c). I wonder where the dividing line is.

I think the defense can still be called for a violation, just not in the specific play. The rule only says "player" and hasn't changed since last year. If they took it out here, they should add a case where it is a violation

9.3.3 Sit C is the NFHS heading in the wrong direction. The principle should be that players on both teams should not be able to leave the court in order to obtain an advantage. One of those advantages has to be that the player is the first to reach/catch/touch the ball upon returning, but there can definitely be other ways in which an unfair advantage can develop, such as sneaking up behind an opponent to steal the ball or gaining a superior rebounding position (and then getting the rebound), or even obtaining a prime defensive position from which he takes a charge. The unfair advantage just isn’t realized until the player returns and makes the subsequent play.

How about just reaching a better defensive position and preventing the opponent from making what would have otherwise been an easy score without making any contact at all? Now the opponent either misses the try for goal or has to stop and pass the ball back out to another teammate and the opportunity has been lost.

Imagine an offensive player who has ended his dribble near a boundary line. It seems that a defender who is able to run out of bounds behind that player and come back in on the other side of him to steal the ball is gaining an unfair advantage by avoiding his line of sight. At the very least, he is using an area of the playing court for which it is not intended.

A defensive player who is blocked out by two opponents also seems to gain an unfair advantage by being able to utilize the out of bounds area to get around these players and into a better rebounding position or if he is able to avoid a screen along the end line and then return in the FT lane to draw a charge under the basket. Why? He got to that defensive position more quickly than he would have if had to take an inbounds path to avoid that screen.

While I understand that NFHS removed the violation for a defender going out of bounds simply to avoid a screen because it does not wish to interrupt the flow of the game when the action is of no consequence, if that defender is now able to return and block a shot, grab a rebound, or take a charge, an unfair consequence from the running out of bounds has occurred and should be penalized. The problem with this ruling is that the NFHS is telling us not to penalize this defender even when he is the first to touch the ball upon returning.

Bob makes the point that we are justified to ask the NFHS author if this is only for a shot attempt (hence a specific situation without team control) or if the defender is totally exempt. For example, what if A3 didn’t shoot, but instead tried to throw a pass to A4 and B3 returns to the court just in time to intercept it?

Good in theory, but hard to enforce / administer. The current (leave and be the first to touch the ball) gets 95% of the issue and is relatively easy to enforce (at least before the new cases).