I had this happen last night in a varsity boys game. Game was being played in a old, small gym known as The Pit. It was very loud. The home team goes on a run and the noise escalates. After a home team basket, the visiting team is preparing to inbound the ball when a sound similar to the whistle comes from the crowd. The ball is inbounded and the player that catches walks toward without dribbling and bounces the ball. I signal for a travel. I then realize that the player heard the "whistle" and thought their was a timeout. I had the PA announcer make an announcement concerning crowd whistles. I was prepared to give ball back to the home team when my partner suggested we treat this as an accidental whistle and give the ball back to the visting team. After thinking about it I agreed with my partner. The home coach was not totally happy with the decision but did not put up much of a fight.
My question is did we do this the right way?I checked my rule book and case book and there is not a specific reference to a whistle from the crowd. Rule 2.11.10C refers only to an accidental whistle by an official. By this rule my partner was right. Any thoughts, questions or suggestions?

A whistle from the crowd is not an expected noise. I would have blown my whistle to stop play to prevent any violations from occuring (think when a free thrower loses the ball), then have the PA guy do his thing.

Now if I am in a gym or field house where two or more games are going on, too bad, so sad.

However, I would have counted the violation and moved on, but I see no problem in how you handled it.

A couple of years ago I had a somewhat similar situation in a boys' H.S. varsity game in a Christmas tournament.

Team A has the ball in their front court in the first half.
I am T on the table side. A1 has the ball at the top of the key when A's head coach whistles very loudly. Everybody on Team B freezes while A1 drives to the basket for a layup. My partner and I blew our whistles and looked at each other as if to say what the heck just happened. We went to the A's head coach and he told us that he always whistles when he wants his team to call a time-out. My partner and I huddled and decided we didn't believe him. We disallowed the basket and T'd up Coach A for unsportsmanlike conduct. He wasn't happy but he didn't protest much. It was our opinion that this was a planned play and he had been getting away with it until now.

Gutsy call, Mark.

Mark - I know that coach doesn't work out here, but we had the almost the exact same thing done against us. Coach whistled loudly and all our players stopped, his kept playing. Refs stopped game, warned coach, then resumed play. Coach acted as though nobody had ever said anything to him about this before. But he fooled me too, so I can't believe he could be surprised that his whistle would fool opponents.