Leaving the court while playing defense

[bgtg19]

Last night, at our association meeting, the following situation was discussed.

Player A1 commits two fouls during the first period and gets a seat on the bench for the rest of the quarter. As the teams enter the floor to begin the second quarter, the officials count the number of players coming on to the floor. The counts are five for Team A and five for Team B, so the Referee gives the ball to Team B to start the quarter. Team B completes the throw in and, while Player B1 is dribbling on the wing (not really under pressure, not really doing anything to advance the ball), Referee notices that A1 walks off the court and sits down in front of the table. Referee blows his whistle and goes to the table.

Referee gets to the sideline and asks A1, "Why did you leave the floor?" A1 says: "Someone at the table said to come over because I wasn't legally in the game." Referee asks the official scorer, the official timer, and the person keeping the visiting book and each of them says to the Referee that they did not say a thing.

Referee consults quickly with his partner (two-man crew) before assessing a technical foul against A1 for leaving the floor for an unauthorized reason.

Referee (who last year officiated in the state final game and has more than 30 years of experience) and his partner (who also has about 30 years of experience and is well respected in the area) were both at the association meeting and announced that, while they had done the correct thing by the book, they feel that they did not handle it right with respect to common sense. They both said that they feel as though they should have just waived Player A1 back on to the court, given the ball back to Team B, and continued with the game. Another official at the meeting asks whether they might instead have called a violation against A1 given the rule change.

The experienced group of officials at the meeting say, essentially: "No, the rule change was for players going out of bounds around screens, but leaving the court for an unauthorized reason is still a T." A lot of us at the meeting point to the rule, but experienced officials insist that these are "two entirely different circumstances." While I agree that they are different circumstances, I am aware of only one penalty authorized by the rule book for leaving the court for an unauthorized reason.

I am looking for two opinions: (1) If you called it, by the book, what would the call be? and (2) Given that Team B had the ball (and thus Player A1 was not leaving to gain an advantage), would the best call have been a "no call."

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Camron Rust]

Prior rules...T was correct by the book.

New rules....a violation. Like the old rule, the new rule doesn't discriminate differnet unauthorized reasons. If it is unauthorized, it is a violation.

However, under the old rules, I agree that it doesn't make any sense to call a T. The point of the T was to prevent guys running out one door and popping in on the other side of the gym or otherwise going OOB to gain an advantage. In this case, the player was confused (or perhaps deceived by someone near the table). I can't see that this player did anything to tilt the balance advantage/disadvantage towards his team. In fact, it was quite the opposite, it gave the team a 5 vs 4 while he was sitting down.

While you could, in many cases, find a way to avoid a T when it didn't make sense, I don't think you can turn a simple violation into a T short of unsportmanlike conduct as it appears some of your Vets believe.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by bgtg19
[B
The experienced group of officials at the meeting say, essentially: "No, the rule change was for players going out of bounds around screens, but leaving the court for an unauthorized reason is still a T."
[/B]

That's completely wrong.

The old "T" rule- up to this year- was made up of 2 parts:
1) It was a "T" if you left the court for an unauthorized reason.
2) It was also a "T" if you delayed returning in-bounds after being legally out-of-bounds.

When the FED changed the rule, they made the first part- #1- leaving the court for an unauthorized reason- a violation instead of a "T".

The second part- #2- was not changed. Delaying returning in-bounds after being legally out-of-bounds is still a "T".

In your situation, the correct call, by rule, is a violation as per R9-3-2.

Whether you call the violation or not is another discussion.The only 2 choices you have are calling a violation or ignoring it.

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee
Whether you call the violation or not is another discussion.The only 2 choices you have are calling a violation or ignoring it.

This is my issue with making it a violation.

If you do see the guy leave, why stop the game to call the violation? In the sitch quoted above, seems completely pointless.

[Nevadaref]

As the others have already said, your 30-year vets were dead wrong. Why do "vets" insist on doing things the same way year after year when the rules change? Why do these people refuse to change with the game?

Now a couple of points:
1. Whether or not the kid legally substituted prior to the beginning of the quarter, his entry became legal and he became a legal player when the ball became live. The people at the scorer's table were incorrect to say anything to the kid, if that is what happened. Furthermore, if there was a problem with this player (wrong number, not in the scorebook, etc.), the scorer must wait until his team has the ball or the ball is dead to notify the officials.

2. The simple solution here is to make the correct call. When you notice the kid leave the floor and sit down by the table, unless the opponent is in the act of scoring, whistle the play dead. You now have a great opportunity to straighten out the poor, confused kid. He comes back onto the floor and the opponent gets a throw-in near the table. No problems, everyone is happy and the game continues.
Two 30-year vets couldn't figure that out?


[Edited by Nevadaref on Nov 8th, 2005 at 11:41 PM]