The Most Misunderstood Basketball Rules Updated ...

[BillyMac]

Time for my annual update of my Most Misunderstood Basketball Rules list.

High school basketball rules are often misunderstood by coaches, players, parents, and fans. Officiate basketball games long enough and officials will hear dozens of erroneous comments from players, coaches, parents, and fans, and think to themselves, “I wish I could stop the game and explain the real rule to them".

For example. A player is dribbling the ball in the backcourt and a fan is yelling, "Three seconds". Or, a player is inbounding the ball and a parent yells, "He's stepping on the boundary line". Officials often want to sound the whistle, stop the game, and say, "There can't be a three second violation until the ball is in the frontcourt", or, "The player can step on the line, but not over the line onto the court".

Knowing these rule misconceptions in advance can help basketball officials understand where players, coaches, parents, and fans, are “coming from”. Rookie basketball officials can benefit from this article by clearing up any misconceptions that they might have had coming into basketball officiating after years of being a player, or a fan.

Here are the “real” rules often misunderstood by coaches, players, parents, and fans, and, yes, basketball officials.

These are high school rules and must not be confused with NCAAM, NCAAW, NBA, WNBA, or FIBA rules.

I developed this list over the past forty years, officiating thousands of basketball games. I first used this list back in 2005, for a presentation that I was making to a college level basketball coaching class after I was asked to give a lecture on the most misunderstood basketball rules. The list has evolved many times over the years.