Friday night. Pistons-Sonics.

Hamilton attempts a 3-ball (misses)in front of visitors' bench when coach (Bob Hill) is on court. Apparent contact, ref makes call: Basket good (3 pts), shoot tech (4 pt play). Ball to Sonics.

What's the call NFHS?

You charge the coach with 2 direct technical fouls - one for entering the court without permission and one for committing an unporting act. Coach is ejected. The shooting team gets 4 free throws and the ball at center for a throw-in.

Same as the way they handled it. Coach was on the court where he shouldn't have been which resulted in interference with an opposing player, T'him up and move on.

JR, that ruling is for intentional interference by a team member. You think we should apply the same ruling to an unintentional act, basically being out of the coaching box? Just asking.

Dev, we can't count the basket in HS. This is not BI or GT in the NCAA or FED rules. In the NBA, they have a specific case play that address this specific play and they rule it BI.

We can't do it "same as the way they handled it".

Dang, beat me back Chuck...I was just getting ready to post that I had just seen the replay again and realized they counted the basket. I thought it went in originally. I agree, I'm just giving him a technical and going on from there. Even in the NBA on this play, he had time to reset his feet and shoot so it didn't really affect the shot in any way, I would not have counted it.

Does anyone know the actual rule or have a copy of the case that applies, just out of curiosity?

I really don't think that it matters whether the interference is intentional or not. No matter what, it's still interference. The bottom line is that the coach still committed 2 separate rules infractions- same as the play on the NFHS website. He was on the court and he also interfered with the play.

The play is posted on the NFHS website.

http://www.nfhs.org

follow the links to basketball rules. You'll find a heading posted as "2005-06 Basketball Rules Interpretations". Click on that and the interpretations will come up on the right hand side of the page. It's situation #12.

But that applies to a player who deliberately interferes with the shot. It's not clear from that case that the same ruling would apply to the coach who's a few feet on the floor with no intent to interfere with the play but does interfere.

The coach did exactly the same thing as the sub on the bench in situation #12. They both came on the court illegally, and they both interfered with a play. I don't think that you need a roadmap on this one to say that the ruling should apply equally to all bench personnel who commit an act similart to the one outlined in that situation.

COMMENT: Two technical fouls must be assessed in this situation. Otherwise, the team committing the infraction would benefit from the act. (10-4-1; 10-4-2)

Wouldn't this be a reason to follow JR's interp?

Why let a team possibly benefit from the Coach's infraction?

Are we saying that the coach being 2 feet out of the box was an "act" beyond being out of the box. The situation referenced had a team member coming onto the floor and then intentionally blocking the shot. I'm not saying it shouldn't be 2 T's, just that the situation are not direct parallel.

The only problem I have with two Ts is the coach is going to get ejected when he unintentionally intefered with the game. Just my opinion.

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.

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.