Friday night, boys JV. Black down by one, gets fouled at "end" of the game. Clock reads 0:00 (no thenths) but the horn has not yet sounded, so the game was not yet over. Black free throw shooter sinks both free throws. As the second free throw goes in, all nine black subs plus their coach storm the floor to celebrate the "win."

By rule, since the game wasn't yet over, we could have thrown the book at black's bench and their coach. This would have ejected all nine subs and their coach, plus hit them with a two-game suspension.

My partner and I conferred and intentionally decided to go against the book and not assess all the technicals and the massive ejections. However, we did decide that we couldn't overlook the fact that the entire black team was on the floor, and we decided to charge black with one bench technical.

White went to the line for two free throws, but missed both. White inbounded opposite table because of the technical, but failed to get off a shot before the horn went off. Black won by one.

Did we do the right thing in relation to the one technical? Or should we have overlooked it completely? Or should we have tossed all the black players and coach who came on the floor before the "end" of the game?

There were no ejections involved, by rule, except for the head coach. You only have ejections if the bench players come on to the floor during a fight or when a fight may break out. You penalize your situation under a different section- R10-4-2-"enter the court without permission". Penalty for that is a "T" charged to everybody on the bench who came on the floor, plus an indirect "T" to the head coach for every direct "T" charged.

I certainly don't have a problem with how you handled it. I bet that the next time you run into something like this, you'll be telling the coach before the FT"s to keep his players on the bench. The problem remains, though, if the losing team complains that you didn't call the "T"s by the book, how are you gonna answer that charge? And will your association or assignor back up your 1-"T" solution?

[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Dec 20th, 2004 at 10:20 AM]

Preventative officiating! IMHO, you should have informed both teams before the free throws were taken that the game was not over. Then you would not have had the premature celebration. This was a very avoidable technical foul.

Z

Communication
 

Communication is easy in this situation. Let the scorers know and both coaches what is going on and thus preventing this from happneing.

It only takes a few seconds for an official to let everyone know.

Thanks
David

Coaches Were Informed
 

FWIW, we did consult with both coaches and the table before the first foul shots were taken and informed all of them together them that the game was not over, and that we would line up for the free throws in the normal manner. What we didn't do was remind the coaches that they could't come on the floor until the game was over. Maybe next time we'll be a little more explicit. Hindsight is perfect, I guess.