Possession Arrow Mistake

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally posted by harmbu
High School Girls basketball game (Fed Rules). A held ball is called and the arrow is mistakenly pointing the wrong direction. The officials look at the arrow and award the ball to Team B. Coach from Team A is at the table pointing out the mistake as the ball is handed to the inbound passer. The official scorer seems to agree that there was a mistake, but does nothing. Team B inbounds the ball and scores. Team A comes down the floor, scores and the ball goes back the other way where a dead ball occurs. Things are explained to the the officials and they confer about it. After a short time, the officials talk to each coach and things stay the way they are.

My question is: What more could the coach of Team A have done to get this taken care of before the next dead ball? I think the horn should have been sounded as soon as the mistake was discovered and things could have been corrected immediately.

The AP Arrow is not pointing toward the correct basket is not a Correctable Error. But there is a way to correct the situation and it must be corrected before the AP Throw-in ends.

The play in this post is a good example of what Coach A did correctly. The rules allow Coach A to go to the Scorer's/Timer's Table and request at timeout to ask that a Correctable Error be corrected, and he is allowed this same privilege if the AP Arrow is not correct. In the posted play, the Scorer (the visible AP Arrow is official; the Scorer's written account of the AP Arrow is official) sound have notified the Game Officials immediately upon Coach A's request concerning the AP Arrow. If the Game Officials found that the AP Arrow was indeed incorrect, the AP Arrow is corrected and Team A is awarded the AP Throw-in. If the the AP Arrow was correct, then Team A is charged with at team timeout, and if there is any remaining time left they are entitled to use it. But the deadline to correct and mistake in the AP Arrow is before the AP Throw-in ends.

Therefore in the posted play, if the mistake is not discovered until after Team B completes its AP Throw-in, then the AP Arrow is left pointing toward Team A's basket and Team A will receive the next AP Throw-in. A team shall not receive two consecutive AP Throw-ins.

MTD, Sr.