Player ignores ref

[Hawks Coach]

Actually, by signalling, you are helping all involved - your team of refs, the opposing team, and the team getting the ball. By making a clear signal coming out of the TO, you are letting everybody on the court know the situation, not just the inbounding team.

And you also might keep yourself from making a mistake. Last tournament we were at, one ref had the wrong spot, which I was able to point out before he administered the throw-in. Another ref had them running the endline when it was being inbounded off a travelling call on the endline (but we were coming out of a TO and he forgot). Both of these I caught becuse of the signal. In the latter case, I probably couldn't have done anything if the player had started to run the endline wit no signal, but the ref allowed it to happen.