Coach Interference

[Camron Rust]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee

The coach was not only out on the court, Camron, as per the original post above, he actually made physical contact with the shooter also. It doesn't really matter whether the contact was intentional or not; it was contact. In the situation on the FED website, someone from the bench came on the floor and blocked a shot. Personally, I'd say that making contact with the shooter is probably a heckuva lot worse from an unsporting standpoint than just blocking a shot.

My point was that the coach being run into is clearly not the same as the coach running into the player (initiating contact). The original post made no distinction as to the nature of the contact. It say that it is not clear that it is a worse offense. It depends on what really happened. If the coach purposefully put themselves in the way of the shooter and, in the process, caused contact, I fully agree. If the coach was a little on the floor and instructing his players when the opponent runs into him, I'm not so sure. It's certainly a T for being out of the coaching box, but 2? Maybe, it's just no obvious and the situation on the NFHS website does not address this. You can't automatically extrapolate an intentional unsporting act to being the same inadvertant contact.

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Camron Rust
My point was that the coach being run into is clearly not the same as the coach running into the player (initiating contact). The original post made no distinction as to the nature of the contact. It say that it is not clear that it is a worse offense. It depends on what really happened. If the coach purposefully put themselves in the way of the shooter and, in the process, caused contact, I fully agree. If the coach was a little on the floor and instructing his players when the opponent runs into him, I'm not so sure. It's certainly a T for being out of the coaching box, but 2? Maybe, it's just no obvious and the situation on the NFHS website does not address this. You can't automatically extrapolate an intentional unsporting act to being the same inadvertant contact.

Okay, we don't have a completely applicable case play, or official interp. So we've got to go to 2.3 and do the best we can. What would you personally do in the original sitch?

[Camron Rust]

Originally posted by rainmaker

Okay, we don't have a completely applicable case play, or official interp. So we've got to go to 2.3 and do the best we can. What would you personally do in the original sitch?

What would you do if the coach were competely in his box, giving inscrutctions to his players when the dribbler bumps an outstretched arm, losing the ball OOB in the last 5 seconds while down 1 point? Is that an unsporting act? Does the coach moving 2" forward such that his toes are slightly inbounds change this? What about 1-2'?

It is certainly not the same as someone stepping on the floor from the bench and blocking the shot.

I'm not sure what I'd do. I would be inclined to call whatever it took to "make it right" but the case play cited doesn't let us jump to the conclusion that 2 T's must be called.