Had BV game Friday night. Home team is supposed to get clobbered, but comes out and plays a great first half and the visiting team doesn't play well. Home team up 14 at break. Visitors decide to play the second half and make it a tight game. Game tied 53-53 with 6.2 seconds left Visitors have just called time out. After the first horn blows I am getting ready to administer the throw opposite the benches, so I had to clear a few cheerleaders out of the way. When I turn around I have an Assistant coach standing next to me telling me that they want a timeout right before they hand the ball in. I am dumbfounded that the coach is all the way across the floor but tell him to have the players call the timeout when they want it.

Just wondering if anyone has had something similar to this and how did they handle it? We had a player call the timeout and the visitors ended up hitting a jumper as the buzzer sounded to win by 2.

ART. 2 . . . The head coach and assistant coach(es) must remain seated on the bench at all times while the clock is running or is stopped except to:

a. Confer with bench personnel and players within the confines of the bench area during a charged time-out or the intermission between quarters and extra periods.
b. Attend an injured player when beckoned onto the court by an official.
c. Rise in front of their seat to spontaneously react to an outstanding play by a member of their team or to acknowledge a replaced player(s), but must immediately return to their seat. (See 1-13-2)

PENALTY: (Art. 2) Two free throws plus ball for division-line throw-in. If the head coach is the offender, the foul is charged directly to him/her. The foul is charged to the offender (if not the head coach) and also charged indirectly to the head coach.

That's the penalty after a T, not sure what it has to do with jerry's statement.

The suggestion is that an assistant coach gets a T for crossing over to the other side of the court to talk to the official.

If the teams/coaches had been good that night, I'm not sure I'd want to end the game that way (despite the fact that it was *their* actions, not mine, that caused it to end that way...). If another official called a T, I would certainly respect her/his judgment. I think I'd be inclined -- again, assuming that this was all otherwise "innocent" stuff -- to tell the assistant: "Coach, you can't be over here. Even during a dead ball/timeout, a coach leaving the bench area can be assessed a technical foul." Again, assuming that it was an innocent mistake, it will never happen again.

Innocent mistake?.....maybe at middle school or freshman levels, but not, IMHO at the varsity level. It sounds like a head game to me. The visiting team obviously wants to see the home's defensive setup & call another timeout to make adjustments. Looks to me like an attempt to suborn the officials to become part of that process.

The assistant has no right to be across the court (neither does the head coach for that matter), and can not, by rule, request a time out - only the head coach or an on court player may do so. While I agree that it would be a shame to end the game this way, calling the T is the right thing to do - to simply ignore it would be unfair to the opponent. Whether the action was a deliberate ploy, or simply stupidity in failing to keep his bench under proper control, the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the head coach.