happened at my son's high school game 2 nights ago.
team a, home team, in possession. ball in frontcourt. a piece of candy, valentine's day kinda thing, thrown on the court from area where home team's fans are sitting. ref sees the candy skid across the court. immediately blows whistle. turns to that part of crowd. technical. 2 shots to b. loss of ball.

2 questions.

a) how/why would ref assume offender, though obviously seated in team a section, was a team a fan.

b) should not a public p.a. warning have preceeded a technical foul assessment

(after the t, home team coach announced to crowd on the game microphone "you just cost a technical foul..."

#26, Did the ref have to address, or have any other trouble with the crowd prior to the incident? It is in the official jurisdiction to assess a technical foul if he/she feels that a safety issue exist, without any verbal warnings. Good officiating would be to give the home coach/a.d the opportunity to correct the problem first.

Where I normally officiate, The Coaches are very pro-active in this type of behavior! If this occurs! We blow our whistle. The head coach gets on the PA and states the consequences of the next time this will be a technical foul! In the two times that I have seen this. The offender is mysteriouly pointed out and escorted from the gym.

No problem!(so far)

AK ref SE

The NFHS and NCAA handles this situation in different ways.

NCAA R10-S3-A7 is an indirect technical foul charged to either a team or a player and deals with purposely throwing debris onto the playing court is prohibited once the officials' jurisdiction has begun. The NCAA has taken a strong stance against throwing things onto the court. The most common item being rolls of toilet paper on the court after the first score by the home team.

Under NFHS rules an official can charge a technical foul against a team for the actions of its followers. BUT be very careful if you go down this path. If you are starting to have problems with fans it is time to get game management involved. I have been involved in games where I would have loved to have banned all of the parents from the gym but I have never called a technical foul on the followers of a team. The NFHS does not want to you not to charge a team with a TF because of the actions of its fans but rather use great care if you go down that path. I would try to everything to NOT penalize the players for the actions of its fans.