The magic number

[AZ_REF]

Using the shot clock to gauge backcourt is a bad idea for a number or reasons. However it depends on the clock. If the clock ticks down at x.9, the first tick from 35 to 34 happens at .1 seconds. When the clock showed 25 there could be 25.9 seconds left.

If the click ticks at x.0, the first tick happens at 1 second. In this case 34.5 would read 35 still. At 25 there could be 24 to 24.99 seconds left in this case.

Locally we had the same discussion with the new reset rule on a kicked ball. One opnion was that if the shot clock read 15 we were to instruct the clock operator to reset it to 15 seconds. However this could be a bad idea due to the reasons outlined above. Hope my math makes sense to everybody.