Last Second shot

[davidw]

Last night, boys varsity, score 40 to 40, time left .6 sec., visitor ball in backcourt at intersection of baseline and sideline. After a time-out, ball is put in play, full court pass to B2 in front of me at lead in front court near free-throw line extended. A2 in the air, intercepts pass and as returning to court heaves one handed shot to his basket approx. 70 ft. away. Horn sounds after shot has left his hand, I track ball and see it on-line with hoop, NOTHING BUT NET. I am official opposite table and signal basket good. My two partners both mirror as we were in a very wide triangle and they, I assume, wanted to not only let me know they agreed it was off in time but to let all gym occupants know we were in agreement.

After we exited gym, all three of us are shaking our heads in disbelief at what we witnessed. Obviously, the home fans erupted in a cacophony of noise and excitement. The game was hard fought the entire 32 min. and never more than 4 points seperated the two teams. One of those games we revel in. We were on, the teams were on, the fans were on and it was all capped off by the unexpected and thrilling finish.

As we were basking in the emotions still churning, in comes a well respected, high ranking fellow official from our association. His first words. "That is phyically impossible." I'm thinking he is meaning this figuratively and say something like: "I know, can you believe it?"

He says: "It's impossible for a player to catch a pass return to the floor and heave a shot in .6 sec.!" He referenced the ruling regarding .3 sec. and the necessity of tapping a ball in that time frame in order to have a chance of being legal.

One of my partners asked him, if he, under the circumstances, would have waved off the shot, gone over to the official timer and told him 'he blew it' and did not start the clock in time because it is physically impossible to do what he did in that amount of time. Our guest official, did not respond to that and we discussed other aspects. I went back to the question and said: "I want to go back to "partner's" question, would you have waved it off?" Would you have done it any differently?" He never did answer, he danced around it. Saying something about we should have pregamed the situation. Obviously, we did pregame last sec. responsibilities, etc.

My question(s), do you think it was possible for the scenario to all take place in .6 sec.? (I'm not entirely sure B2 came completely down before beginning his shooting motion, as I recall it seems he began bringing his arm back while in the air after having intercepted the pass and was bringing it forward as he came to the floor and fired off his shot. But there is no doubt from the 3 officials on the floor that the shot left his hand before the buzzer went off.) Do you have an opinion on our guest officials sharing his opinion in the manner he did?

David Weathers

[Edited by davidw on Dec 21st, 2004 at 10:55 PM]