You'll have to ask Chuck. Evidently, he's grading papers today. :p

:o You're right. I forgot that little fact. Good call.

But you did put him on the line. He scored two FTs and the rule doesn't say to cancel those FTs.

Obviously. :) And I'm having fun doing it, too. Seeing the ruling in writing forced me to go back to the actual rule and I noticed the "discrepancy", for lack of a better word. I'm going to suggest to my rep on the rules committee to add the phrase "and all related activity" to the rule.

True, but the error was not recognized until B3 had already made the shots. rule 2-11-3a (NCAA rules) also says:
- points scored, time consumed and additional activity, which may occur before the recognition of the error, shall not be nullified.

This is where my confusion still lies.

The rules sureasheck <b>do</b> say to cancel those FT's. B3 shot 2 <b>unmerited FT's</b>. Unmerited FT's are correctable under 2-10(b). The officials caught it and corrected it using 2-10-4--<i>"If the error is.....the awarding of an unmerited free throw, the free throw......<b>shall be cancelled.</b>"</i>

Think <b>two</b> correctable errors corrected on the play by the officials-- i.e. FT's by a wrong player <b>and</b> unmerited FT's taken.

Just ask yourself "<b>When</b> was the error recognized?". The answer is that the errors were recognized <b>after</b> all the FT's were taken. Iow, anything that happened <b>before</b> that except for the exceptions laid out in the rule is nullified. That includes A3's common foul.

That is the correct answer. Once the foul by A3 is cancelled, the FTs by B3 become unmerited. There are two separate correctable errors here.

Good explanation, JR! :)

Just to jump in on Chuck's side...if we are going to cancel the FT's, where are we going to inbound the ball following the correction? Are we going to say there is no way we should be on B's side of the court and just resume play following the correction (B to inbound as after any other FT). Remember had there been no error the ball would be on A's side of the court, but the rule says go back to the POI.

Further what if the error had been recognized right after B's FT's. By rule, after correcting the error we would rturn to the POI, therefore A1 would shoot his FT's, we cancel B3's FTs, and then walk back down to B's side of the court and hand A the ball.

I'm sure there will be a strong argument for resuming following A1's FT's but lets go back to the OP and change it ever so slightly and say that after A1 inbounded B1 tips it OB. Now I think its even harder to go against the rule and resume following A1's FT's.

1) Why <b>wouldn't</b> you simply just follow the rule book then? Or are you saying we should just forget about the rules?:confused: Somehow, I don't think that's very good advice at <b>any</b> time. If the rule says go back to the POI, then we go back to the POI.

2) Um, no, by rule you're wrong. We cancel B3's FT's,then we go to that POI The POI for cancelling B3's unmerited FT's would now be A2 wrongfully shooting his FT's, with <b>no</b> subsequent throw-in. We correct that by putting A1 on the line for 2 FT's and having the players line up on the lane lines for those FT's. A sureasheck <b>doesn't</b> get the ball if you follow the rules correctly.

3) Gee, I hate to break it to you but we <b>shouldn't</b> go <b>against</b> the rules, Boomer. Whether you or any of us personally like any rule or not isn't ever really a factor. If the POI following the corrections is team A getting a throw-in because B1 tipped the ball OOB, then you give team A that throw-in after all the corrections. That's called getting the play <b>right</b>!

First of all, you are right on point 2, since the ball hadn't become live, we could return to the improper player from A shooting as the POI and resume play accordingly. I missed that, and thank you for the correction.

With the other points, I wasn't advocating just making up my own rules or making a decision based on what I feel is equitable, but rather that it is a situation that is likely to be seen by coachs, fans, etc (all the people that doen't really understand the rule) as unfair. I know fair is based on the rules and we are responsible for creating fairness by getting the play right according to the rules. I'm just saying, I would hate to be the ref that has to tell B's coach that we are cancelling his team's FT's going to make A reshoot and then give A the ball back.

I relate this to a situation I had a couple of years ago where the table failed to let us know that A was in the bonus. We gave A the ball to inbound following foul 7 (table had miscounted, clearly had 7 marked just didn't count right) and proceeds to hit a 3 point-shot. B's stat-keeper realizes as the shoot is in the air that A should have been shooting FT's and B immediately calls a TO following the made shot. This brings us to the lovely situation of having to count the 3, then award A1 is FT's (he makes both) and then return to B's ball. All of this is based on rule, but it sure makes for a fired-up coach for B.

Which is why we as officials have to be very diligent about keeping track of team fouls. A mistake like this by the officials/table crew causes a team to get screwed. I wish the FED would rewrite the correctable error rule for this particular situation. Either discard the basket by A or say that the time to correct the error has passed once A scores any other points.

Right. I think the rule is this way on purpose -- both coaches need to watch for errors and stop them from happening. Otherwise, what looks like an advantage (look -- A isn't going to get to shoot the FTs to which s/he's entitiled) can turn into a disadvantage (as above).

I don't agree with this supposed philosophy behind the correctable error rule. It could be argued in this scenario that Coach A knew he should have been shooting free throws but let his team inbound the ball in hopes of a score followed by Coach A stopping play to correct the error.