I hope this one runs to 10 pages, and several bags of popcorn!

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by ranjo
I was told a story by a D-1 ref who had a player dunk a ball that went thru the basket, hit the player on the head, and bounced back up thru the basket and off the rim. He and both of his partners assumed the player had simply missed the dunk, until 7:00 a.m. the next morning when their supervisor called to ask how in the world could three officials of their caliber miss a basket interference call. It was a close ACC game and the call could have made the difference between a Win or Loss.

Good story but it's not quite right and the rule interpretation is wrong.

As described, your play is not basket interference under either NCAA or FED rules. If the dunk hadda went completely thru the basket before it hit the player on the head, as you said, the shot would have already been ended... the bucket would count... and the ball would now be dead. BI cannot be committed on a dead ball and the subsequent touching by the dunker after the ball went though the net is ignored.

In the actual play, the ball had not cleared the mesh when it hit the dunker's head. As soon as the ball that was still partially in the net touched the player's head, that should have been basket interference and the BI would cause the ball to be dead immediately. No player can legally touch a ball until it has completely cleared the mesh.