LOL! My money is on Chuck going further - I've probably got at least 12-15 pounds on him!

On a side note, I took my youngest son and his best friend (both 12) to WWE Smackdown here in Portland, OR on Tuesday...what a riot! Anyway, there was this "Irish" wrestler who - during his match (bout?) jumped out of the ring, reached under the ring, and pulled out not a folding chair, not a sledgehammer, nope - he pulled out a midget dressed as a leprechaun, tossed him into the ring, and proceeded to use the leprechaun to bludgeon his opponent. I was laughing myself silly, but the two boys were outraged that he would do that to the little guy...

Now had that midget requested time-out while airborne, I would have granted it immediately!

Can you do that under the new NCAA rule if the midget was gonna land out-of-bounds?:confused:

Geeze, you think we take abuse? Nothing like those wrasslin' referees. They make a call that someone don't like, and the next thing you know that someone is a-gnawing away on their forehead.

PS- I was a great fan of George "the Animal" Steele- the guy with the bald head, furry body and green tongue, and ate turnbuckles. He actually was a teacher, just like you.

Hmmmmmm........

Nah.....couldn't be.....

HA! And that would make you The Iron Sheik, right???

Good! I was afraid that you wouldn't be able to! :)

Nah - you know me...way too easy-going to get mad at anything anyone would ever put on a basketball forum! :D

Tony, we did discuss it & I answered your questions even before you posted them.

Here is exactly what I said, word for word including typos, which includes my reasoning:

FWIW2, when I can't grant a request per rule during a loose ball etc I do ask "still want it" when the the coach's team takes control of the ball. Often enough this is a gut reaction by the coach, or even a premediated attempt to get a TO when he knows it's not to be granted by rule. When a coach asks prematurely and conditionally for a TO (ie requests on the make when a shot/FT is in the air) I grant it without re-asking on the make. He's a big boy, I'm assuming he knows what he wants in this case.

As someone else said, it's just what I do. If you feel the need to do differently then do so.

It doesn't get any clearer than that, IMO. And in passing we even discussed the nf & ncaa rules regarding this sitch. Some of us believe the wording is loose enough to permit this. You disagreeing does not make the words any clearer.

I don’t agree with that either because that is exactly the type of stuff that will drive a coach crazy. Now I know some of you don’t care if you make a coach crazy or not, but there does need to be consistency in how these things are handled.

Late in the game, Coach says to referee A during a free throw that he wants a TO on the make. Official says sure thing coach, coach turns to talk to his assistant, basket goes in, official whistles for time and things go from there. Three weeks later, coach is in same situation and says the same thing to referee B this time. Ref says alright, coach turns to talk to his assistant, basket goes in, coach looks up and sees the other team half-way up the floor with the ball. He asks where his TO is and the ref says you need to ask at the right time. Coach is probably going to get T’d up and then Ref B will come on here complaining about how coach doesn’t know the rules about calling a time-out.

Unfortunately, not everyone can discuss such issues with such ease. :D

Nah, coaches are already crazy by the time we meet them. Their own players make them crazy. The parents make them crazy. The weather, the traffic, the lighting in the gym can make them crazy. There is no way to predict which coaches are crazy, and when, and why. So don't sweat it. If anything I do pushes a coach over the edge, I just smile and know that he was standing on the edge, looking down, wondering what it would feel like to fly before I got there. Now he knows ;)

The problem here is not inconsistency between officials, but lack of communication. If referee B isn't going to give the coach the time out, he needs to communicate that to the coach.

As a guy whose state boasts "The Greatest Snow on Earth," I have to ask: What is so wrong with the slipperly slope?

A free throw is a completely routine situation. We've all experienced hundreds of them. It is probably the most controlled environment in the entire game and nothing out of the ordinary ever happens. And if it does, it shows up on the forum. To ask for a TO if the FT is made is not even an interesting twist.

And because the rules are ambiguous on whether other referees should be allowed to handle this completely uninteresting time out his way (and it is about the other guy, we're all convinced that we've got it right;)), a holy war breaks out.

Good. Things were getting really dull lately. :)

Then comes my favorite part. The logical fallacies begin arriving by the truckload. Armies of straw men are assembled. Gnarly, otherworldly scenarios are extracted from dark and smelly, Sans-A-Belt covered places. Rediculous comparisons are drawn. Apples are "what-if'ed" against oranges, then grapefruits and finally orangutans. And amidst the choas, there is always the voice, always the voice. The voice that cries out, where do we draw the line? We must have a line.

As an educated, modern man I can only shake my head in utter disbelief and ask: "Why didn't my college professors ever tell me that logical fallacies were so much fun?" Damn! I want my tuition money back. :D

Why must there be a line? Why must we be able to say we will grant the TO in these situations, but not in any others? Most of all, why must we be able to say why?

Is it not enough to simply agree that in completely routine situations a TO request of the type being discussed can be handled in a completely unsurprising manner? Must we become an irritant for the sake of becoming an irritant? Or worse, must we become an irritant because we don't have a rule to draw a line for us?

If the "ask during halftime for a timeout at the first dead ball under 1 minute" scenario is universally recognized as being way over the line, even if we don't know exactly where to draw the line, then certainly we can agree that the "asking for a TO if the free throw is made" scenario is on the okay side of the line. Even if we don't know exactly where to draw the line.

Must we have just one way of handling a timeout request? Are we not intelligent, resourceful and flexible enough that we can handle a routine request in an unsurprising manner, while dealing with more interesting scenarios differently? So why all the hand-wringing about the 1-in-1,000 or 1-in-1,000,000 scenarios? Aren't we good enough to handle the unusual situation when it arises?

Or we should have a poll.....

They might even be ridiculous. When's the last time you "rediculed" someone?

Yeah, we could do that. :cool:

Are you rediculing my spelling? :confused:

Wow...someone's started the weekend drinking a little early, huh??? This should be on the Top 100 alltime Great Posts!!