Hi,

I am a California boys high school basketball coach who has implemented a Grinnell-type system where we maintain an insane pace ("Am I insane? Or am I so sane that I just blew your mind?" - Kosmo Kramer :) )and we sub a fresh 5 roughly every minute.

When a shift goes too long in this system, sometimes coaches call a timeout simply to sub in a fresh 5. The preference would be to resume play immediately to allow no rest for the opponent.

My understanding is that, at the college level, the minimum length of the actual timeout is at the descretion of the team who called it and that play can resume immediately after the official reports to the scorer's table to record the timeout.

Am I correct in this understanding? I have heard second or third-hand that this does not apply at the high school level and that play cannot resume immediately unless both teams agree to do so. Is this also correct? If it is, I guess I will have to work with my guys on intelligent use of fouls.

I am also curious if anyone has officiated a team that plays this system and would love to hear an official's point of view. I know that coaches and players who run it have a blast. I have found that opposing players and coaches either have a blast or think it's a travesty.

I have seen this system cause an official or two to suffer noticably. I teach my players that they carry an extra burden to not reach on defense because the style of play sometimes forces officials to make calls from a further distance than they would normally have to and that any unnecessary stoppage of the clock is unacceptable. I don't know if this is 100% accurate but it sure seems to help the kids limit their reaching.

This is a fantastic resource! I'm just curious why the search feature has been disabled. I usually try to search forums carefully to avoid users having to answer the same questions all the time.

Thanks,
David Ramos-Beban
Head Varsity Boys' Basketball Coach
East Palo Alto High School

Coach,

I have never heard of the Grinnell-system. If you are talking about the type of system that Paul Westhead used at Loyola-Marymount many years ago, I loved watching them. I always enjoy officiating fast games.

NFHS (High School) rules say that you do not resume play after a time-out until BOTH teams are ready. If you call a time-out and are ready in 5 seconds, the officials should not start the game until the time-out is over and/or the other team is ready.

There is no such thing as a reaching foul.

Z

As to the timeout question, while I was looking it up, zebraman gave the answer...here's the reference: casebook 5.11.1.


[Edited by AirForceDude on Dec 5th, 2004 at 09:03 AM]

There is also no such thing as a coach "calling" a timeout. Coaches "request" timeouts. Only officials "call" timeouts.

Why is this distinction important? Players should learn just because a coach yells timeout, it doesn't mean one is starting.

Touché . . . I know that this might be a touchy subject coming from a coach but I didn’t mean to insinuate that I really think a foul will usually be called simply for reaching in front of another player.

In practice, I do call a foul whenever the kids reach instead of moving their feet. Inevitably, they respond that they didn’t even touch the man and I think they genuinely believe that they didn’t even though half the time they did.

The truth is that when they reach they increase the chances of committing a foul and they are relying on an ineffective defensive tactic. I know that this is not the kind of explanation that inspires my kids to change their habits and, as a former journalist, I know that I need to “sex it up” to make it compelling. That’s why I teach them:

1) Any whistle that stops the clock, whether they think it is justified or not, allows the other team to rest and really impacts our system.
2) Increasing the speed of the game makes it harder to officiate because things happen faster and positioning is harder to maintain.
3) If you reach under these circumstances, you will usually be called for a foul whether it happened or not.

3 is the one I know I’m fudging on because it hits home with the kids . . . they see the “truth” in it because they feel like they rarely commit a foul and the assertion that a foul is being called based on their reaching rather than actual contact rings true to them.

The downside is that I’m exaggerating the existence of human error at the expense of the officials (certainly not the worst offense that you have to endure, but somewhat dishonest nonetheless).

The upside is that it humanizes officials – I try to use this example to drill it in their heads that officials are human and make mistakes just like they do. The other huge upside is that these guys never so much as look back at a ref when they get called for fouling while reaching. They have even begun to apologize to teammates for not using their feet. This is a huge deal for a team of guys who want to debate EVERYTHING with EVERYONE - just ask their teachers about this one.

I bet you didn’t think anyone had put this much thought into it. Have I dug myself out of a hole yet? :)

In terms of the Grinnell system . . . It is based partially on LMU but is also based on Coach Arsenault’s experience as a hockey coach and a desire to increase meaningful participation for more players. By subbing units every minute or so like a hockey team, you don’t have to train like a track team. LMU was unbelievably well-conditioned. The condition of my guys is much more . . . er . . . believable. Once I tried this system, I realized how much all players coast in a game to preserve their energy and how much kids can dominate superior athletes by giving 100% the whole time they are on the court.

The Grinnell system is also based on some serious number crunching and they set statistical goals that most coaches would deem unimportant or even crazy. In developing these goals, Arsenault has solicited members of the math department to study statistics and this system is rooted in academic rigor in a way that I haven’t heard of before. This factor is lost on many observers who consider the system half-baked.

It’s a complete joy to coach, play and watch. Thanks for the rules clarifications.

David

David, welcome to the board!

You didn't bring up a touchy subject. We just avoid the "announcerspeak" here. Terms such as "reaching foul" and "over the back" are "announcerspeak." There are no such terms found in the rule book, so we attempt to dispel those myths when we see them in any form. So while you may realize that a player who reaches for the ball or a player who rebounds the ball from behind his opponent doesn't necessarily foul, many fans, players, and coaches don't.

The same goes for requesting a TO. Only an official can call a TO. ;)

David, welcome to the forum. Thanks for the intelligent questions, and explanation of your system. I've never worked a game that implemented the substitution-pattern that you describe. I would think that it would make the games much longer. Substituting all five players every minute or so would make the sub "breaks" longer and more frequent (or so it seems to me after admitting I'm completely ignorant about it :rolleyes: ). So I'm just curious, what's the average length of game in your games? I mean, if your game tips off at 7 pm, what time is it done, generally?

As to the search function, don't get me started. It's been disabled for over a year. We've gone through a huge growth spurt here and (I think) the site software couldn't keep up with all the search requests.

I suppose if the kids are used to it, it goies pretty quickly

I live fairly close to Grinnell -- I've been meaning to see them play but have been working too many games myself.

The coach on here can explain the system far better than me, but here's an article on the system:

http://www.grinnell.edu/athletics/mb...ublicity/espn/

--Rich

I know if I were the opposing coach, I'd request a defensive line-up everytime the subs came in. It would effectively be a 30 second time-out (at least) every time, and would minimize the intended effect.

interesting!! and it really would take all day...

To be honest, I kind of get tunnel vision during games and never really pay attention to how long they are. In general, I think the additional breaks are offset somewhat by the speed with which they happen. There are no match-up conversations, no questions about who is coming off and who is playing where. The kids sprint on and off the floor and know right where to go.

In essence, each shift is also like a timeout. Instead of wasting time yelling instructions on the floor, I have learned to coach the 5 on the bench about to go in. It's almost like we're coming out of a timeout each time we sub.

The games really don't seem longer to me, but that could just be adrenaline.

Is this a really big school? I am just wondering about the trade-off of playing your number 10 player half the time. Do the fresh legs make up for the drop in skills, unless your team is really deep.

Our school is actually part of the small schools movement and we have only 300 students.

Fresh legs make an even greater difference than I anticipated when I implemented this system. Plus, the would-be bench warmers really improve with increased playing time and pressure from teammates.

The kids really seem to bond quickly without the traditional backstabbing and jockeying for position. It becomes apparent to them very quickly that we are capable of things that would be impossible with only our top 7 or 8. Also, our individual stats have increased since our more traditional system last year despite playing time being cut in half for our best players.

What is a typical score for your team? Saw a score here recently,(2 small schools, short court) something like
128-112. I thought at the time that this one would have been stressful to officiate.