Could someone out there please give a definitive answer to what the officials look/listen for when they check the monitor to tell whether a goal counts at the end of a half in NCAA play?
Has there been a memo on the priority of the horn sounding, clock showing zeros, or the light coming on?

The Light, horn, and clock are supposed to be the same when 0:00's hit. THe monitor has to show the light with the clock insert. So, you should be able to tell by either/or clock and light.

You may remember from the Texas at Providence game earlier this year, the light is the definitive end of the game; not the horn (can't hear it on the replay) or the clock.

In this game, a Texas player released a game winning shot so close to time expiring that they used replay to determine that the shot should count. Here's the kicker, the ball was still in the shooter's hand when the game clock showed 0:00, but was deemed to have been out of the shooters hand when the red light went on behind the backboard. Although the light is supposed to illuminate at exactly the same time as the clock reaches 0:00, there was a slight delay between the clock and the light. That exceedingly small delay allowed the officials to deem the shot had been released before the end of the game. The officials released a statement after the game that said the light and not the horn or clock, signals the end of the game.

By rule, light and horn have to be at the same time.

The clock can be up to 0.1 off, so that's the last resort.

As for the first two, in a replay situation, horn takes precedent, I believe.

nothing for sure yet
 

Well, we have some conflicting opinions so far. I do recall the TX/Prov game and that situation. One would think that the NCAA would release a memo to cover this non-sync situation.
I also know that the officials have a headset that they put on to hear while watching the replay monitor.

The headset is to communicate w/ the TV producer/director to obtain the replay with the best angle. The horn has absolutely no impact during the TV replay/review.

No Mark, the light takes precedent.

The Texas game was handled correctly. Tim Higgins and John Clougherty correctly ruled that the ball was released prior to the light being lit.

Thank you, Tony. So if I understand this correctly, when a buzzer beater occurs in a D-I game, the officials will certainly go to the monitor and have a look. Therefore, the sounding of the horn is totally worthless.

They will look for the light behind or around the backboard coming on, which should be simultaneous with the clock showing 0.0, but if it is not the light will take priority over the clock.

It looks like 1. light 2. clock 3. horn (meaningless)

PS Do you have anything written by the NCAA on this or are you just going from the TX/Prov game and what was said after it?

And the big reason for the horn being last...

The speed of sound AND crowd noise. Both impact the perception of when the horn actually sounded where the light and clock are unaffected by the environment.

The light is the most easily used since it is binary...on or off, nothing between, especially if they're LED based lights that illuminate nearly instantaneosuly.

The timing of hearing the horn depends on where the horn is physically located. It could differ by one or two tenths depending where you are in relation to the horn.

As others mentioned, sound is also not available on the replays.

Just to raise a fuss, I'll throw this in to the mix. Light is also affected by environment. Light is refracted by smoke or fog. So for those ever important games played in bowling allys or outside, there could be some error.

Furthermore, its widely known that we are all blind so could we even see the light if we wanted to so it? But then again I guess that's why the replay is in place.

Doesn't really even matter to me. I only work HS and below, although I've done games at schools that have the light. Per Fed the horn is the ultimate judge and there is no replay anyway. This is based on 0:00 in a HS gym could actually be 0:00.4. Horn = 0:00.0 and the end of the game. Guess HS officials better be able to hear. NCAA is just following the American's with Disabilities Act and making a better environment for the hearing impared. (Just a joke there, I've worked with a deaf referee before and the only difference was we discussed listening for the horn and how to handle it in the pregame.)

If it were available, I'm not sure it would be conclusive. When you're looking at a slow-motion replay, frame by frame, it's relatively easy to see when the light is on or off. But, when slowed down considerably, it is difficult to identify sounds. If you could completely isolate the sound of the horn, that would be one thing. But to try and pick it out of the background noise when reviewing video at low speed would be, I think, nearly impossible.

I think the math here is a bit inaccurate. One would think that you're at most 94 feet from the horn. Sound travels that distance in 0.08s (8/100ths of a second). cut that time in (at least) half if the horn is located at mid-court or there is more than one horn. So, the sounding of the horn will not differ by tenths of a second, but rather hundredths of a second.

Sound still has nothing on the speed of light. :p

Don't know if Tony has anything written on it, but i do, and he is correct...we got it in one of the conference call memos the supervisors send out earlier this year...

The light is accepeted as the full expiration of time. Remember the time before when we did not have tenths of a second on the clock or the lights behind the backboard. A clock could be stopped with 0:00, yet time would not have expired because the horn had not sounded. That's because there could have been anywhere from .1 to .9 of a second remaining.

Well, with the new clocks, the same principle applies only we're talking about hundredths of a second now instead of tenths. If the clock shows 0:00.0, but the light has not yet illuminated, it means there is anywhere between .01 to .09 of a second remaining. The Texas/Providence game was the prime example of this situation. Hence, the clarification.

I could be wrong, But, its my understanding the situation at this game should not have happened. They fixed the problem after this game. And many other schools also checked to make sure the light comes on when there are all 0's on the clock. They do not want a repeat of this situation again.

Great! This is exactly what I was looking for. Could you post this or provide a link to it, if it is on the web somewhere, say at ncaa.org?

Someone posted above that the fact that there was time left in the game when the clock showed "0.00" was a problem that ultimately was fixed. It is not a problem. It's unavoidable. To the extent there was a problem, they have minimized it by going to tenths of a second, but there is no "solution" beyond that.

Although a physicist may differ, time does not pass in neat increments like seconds or tenths of a second. It passes continuously. For obvious reasons, in sports and other things, we want tangible representations of how much time is passing. But whatever increment you pick will not be perfect. Whatever time is showing on a clock is always going to be inaccurate, except for an instant of time so small that it approaches infinitely small.

When they start the clock at the beginning of a half, it immediately ticks down from 20:00 to 19:59 in an instant, even though a full second has not truly elapsed from the game. So, you just need to understand what the time that is displayed on the clock means. "19:59" means some amount of time exactly equal to or greater than 19:59, but less than 20:00.

So, where is that missing second? It's there, but you just can't see it. When the "true" time in the game gets to an instant less than 19:59, the clock will switch to "19:58," even though there is as much as 19:58.9999999(etc.) left in the game.

Nine tenths of a second are made up when the clock switches from 1:00 to 59.9. Watch this sometime, and you can see 9/10 of that "missing" second elapse right before your eyes, without a corresponding change in the display. When the clock switches from "1:01" to "1:00," it lingers on "1.00" for nearly a second. But how can that be, since the next thing you see on the display is "59.9." There is only one tenth of second between 1:00 and 59.9, yet it takes nearly a full second for this tickdown to occur. That's because you're seeing 9/10ths of the previously missing second that was "saved up" from the 20:00 to 19:59 tickdown. But, at this point, the same principle applies to the display on the clock, except the missing increment is a tenth of a second, not a second, so "51.5" means that there truly is anywhere from exactly 51.5 seconds to 51.5999999(etc.) seconds left in the game. (This is theoretical -- the clock display does not really change at the speed of light, so it's probably closer to 51.58, but you get the point.)

So that's why "0.00" can mean there is still time left in the game. It's not a "problem," because the only "solution" would be for the display to show MORE time left in the game than is truly in the game. (In other words, for the clock to wait to switch until the instant that the time switched to is accurate.) But that would be a nightmare. Would you want the clock to show ".01" when there really is ".00000001" left?

Not necessarily - some clocks actually wait a second before switching over.

Of course, the only way to really know which way the clock runs is to be running it yourself - it's hard to tell from watching a game exactly when the timer pushes the "start clock" button.