Gentlemen:
For your interpertations 2 situations I saw to day at different varsity level games. I am wondering if the rulings on the courts were correct:

1. Team A has the ball crossed the 1/2 court line. As they begin to play, the scoreboard plug comes out and the clockis off. Neither officals see this, and team A continues to play for about 15 seconds. They shoot and score. Team B inbounds the ball and as they are headding up the floor, the officals realize the clock is out. What is the correct ruling? What would the ruling be if the shot by team A was missed?

2. Team A subs,but 1 play does not get off the floor. the officials give the ball to team B wiht out realizing team A has 6 players. Team B inbounds the ball, team steals and makes a lay up. As team B is inbounding the ball again, one official (after seeing/hearing the coach go crazy) counts and calls a T on team A for 6 players. The debate then came about the basket that was scored.

Ruling: An error that is correctable must be done prior to : ~~~ fill in the blank ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you very much!

1. The clock going off has absolutely nothing to do with the play. Yes, someone should have realized it earlier but it doesn't changed what happened on the floor.

2. This isn't a correctable error. The basket counts.

Your first situation is not an error, let alone a correctable one. Basket counts, move on. Set the clock at the last known time.

2nd situation, once again, is not technically an error. The play prior to when the 6th player is noticed is all counted. Basket counts, shoot the free throws, and play on with B ball from half court.

I believe you also want to see the verbiage of correctable errors... especially Art 2.

Rule 2 Section 10
Art. 1... Officials may correct an error if a rule is inadvertently set aside and results in:
a. Failure to award a merited free throw.
b. Awarding an unmerited free throw.
c. Permitting the wrong player to attempt a free throw.
d. Attempting the free throw at the wrong basket.
e. Erroneously counting or canceling a score.

Art. 2... In order to correct any of the officials' errors listed in Article 1, such error must be recognized by an official during the first dead ball after the clock has properly started.

Art 3... If in Article 1e the error is made while the clock is running and the ball dead, it must be recognized by an official before the second live ball.

Art 4... If the error is a free throw by the wrong person or at the wrong basket, or the awarding of an unmerited free throw and the activity during it, other than an unsporting, flagrant, intentional, or technical fouls, shall be canceled.

Art 5... Points scored, consumed time and additional activity, which may occur prior to the recognition of an error, shall not be nullified. Errors because of free throw attempts by the wrong player or at the wrong basket shall be corrected by applying 8-1 and 2.

Art. 6... If an error is corrected, play shall be resumed from the point at which it is interrupted to rectify the error, unless it involves awarding a merited free throw(s) and there has been no change of team possession since the error was made, in which case play shall resume as after any free-throw attempt(s).

If the plug from the console (at the scorer's table) to the scoreboard (on the wall) came out, the time will still be kept on / in the console. Plug the scoreboard back in and resume play.

What if you know some time has run off...do you still go back and set it at the "last known time" knowing that is not, in fact, correct? What if the time was considerable?

Could the Referee "quess" some time off the clock with: backcourt counts, throw-in counts, closely quarded counts, etc?

RD

You can deduct any time that you have direct knowledge of based on counts.

But there's no reason for the clock to not run for very long. SOmebody has to catch it, and usually will.

If, for the sake of argument, the clock has not run for a while. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you know you put the ball in play at 7:02. Play continues for some time before the scoreboard dies for some reason. You and your partner, being good refs, hadn't looked at the clock since you put the ball in play at 7:02.
All you know is that you had a backcourt count to 8, a couple of closely guarded counts to 4, and another backcourt count to 7. Obviously, this scenario would generally take about a minute to have that much action, but you only can definitevly account for 23 seconds. Take 23 seconds off of 7:02, set the clock to 6:39, and play on. If the only count you had during that time was a backcourt count to 4, then you can only take 4 seconds off and set the clock to 6:58.

Adam

What does this mean? If the floor officials do not have first hand knowledge they MUST "quess", don't they? Even if the "quess" is to go back to the last known time. If it's decided to take into account some time, based on counts or whatever, it is still a "quess", isn't it?

Take a deep breath big Dan...just generating a little discussion. Some hypotheticals.

RD