Correctable Error
 

Here is a "potentially weird" situation that almost happened to me last night. It was close game and the ball went out of bounds right by the table. The assistant coach of team A jumped up and called "time out". I did not say anything because it was the assistant, not the head coach. The Team A scorekeeper (visiting team) yelled to the bench that they were out of time outs. We played on with no problem. At the next stoppage of time the official scorekeepr told me that Team A still had one TO left. This got me thinking. If the head coach had called the TO and we thought it was their last and assessed a T (I know, this is an obvious error but sometimes I make some), and then after we shot the free throws the official scorer noticed the error and told us about it, would this be correctable under "awarding aunmerited free throw". Also, how would you re-start the play, at the point of interruption?

This error doesn't fall into the category of "awarding an unmerited free throw." It falls into the category of a "bad call". Assessing a technical foul is a "call" and that can't be corrected. The free throws were merited based on the fact that the technical was assessed.

And I suppose that if the coach was the one who requested the correction, then you have to charge him a TO, and then assess him a T since he doesn't have any TO's left.

And you'll have to toss him when he screams about that one.

And you'll never work a tournament game in your life.

Nope, not in the correctable error guidelines:
SECTION 10 CORRECTABLE ERRORS
ART. 1 . . . Officials may correct an error if a rule is inadvertently set aside and results in:
a. Failure to award a merited free throw.
b. Awarding an unmerited free throw.
c. Permitting a wrong player to attempt a free throw.
d. Attempting a free throw at the wrong basket.
e. Erroneously counting or canceling a score.

My vote is that this is a correctable error.

BTW what is with all of these threads about time-out tracking problems with the table on this forum lately? :eek:

And is anyone out there becoming convinced that the officials should mentally keep the time-outs and not leave this up to the table? ;)

Why wouldn't this fall under awarding. "unmerited free throw?" It would be no different if the table tells you that the foul was the 7th when in fact it was the 6th.

I'm going correctable on this and canceling activity that happened prior to the recognition of an error. That would include the "T".

I'm sure this wouldn't happen this way. The official book already told the Op that the team had 1 TO left. If the official were to assess a T, the book would speak up as tot he discrepancy. That would cause the official to research the info to see where the discrepancy happened. However if one book has one thing and the other book has another and we were all as good as NEVA, our information would match up with one of the books. That would help validate the officials decision to make a change if warranted.

And your vote counts for.....

how much percentage of determining the correct way to hand this?

I imagine it would be much, much easier to look at this as a correctable error, but I'm not sure you can. What rule reference allows you to cancel an assessed foul?

Gimlet, you said:

Why wouldn't this fall under awarding. "unmerited free throw?" It would be no different if the table tells you that the foul was the 7th when in fact it was the 6th.

It IS different from the table telling you that the foul was the 7th when in fact it was the 6th. The difference is that you called a foul when you shouldn't have. That's not on the list of correctable errors.

It's a book keeping errors. Book keeping errors can be corrected at any time with knowledge. Once you fix the book keeping error you can fix the umerited FT error within the proped time limits.

Yea, Dan! :) I change my vote. I'm voting with Dan. ;)

Assessing a technical foul is a bookkeeping error? Wow!

The official book says they are out of time outs and we penelize with a "t" then they say no they did have one more. You mean you wouldn't correct this? There is no way I'm playing on without correcting this major of a mistake. I think that I can justify the correction in the book under the correctable error and book keeping mistake.

The point I was making that its a unmerited free throw which is correctable and the "T" is the activity that happened prior to the reconigtion of the error.

Dan Ref is correct in the fact that it is a book keeping error. Cancel the made FT's and give the ball back to the team that called a time out and play on.

You assessed a "T" because of a book keepiing error. First lets agree that if this scenerio happens that we wouldn't just take the word of the book. I would hope all of us would go and double check the book to make sure that the bookkeeper is looking @ it correctly.

Okay, I'm confused. I thought we all agreed in the toher thread that it's up to the coach to keep track of the TO's and if the book errs, it's tough.

Also, are you saying that you thought this "correction" was during the same stoppage of play as the error? It looks like in the OP the realization of the mistake came later, after a certain amount of playing time.

Yes it is up to the team to keep track of their own TO's. In the previous thread the book told them they had one when they didn't. In this case they called a TO that they thought they had. After the official grants the TO the book says they are out, the "T" is assessed, the B team shoots 2 throws, then the book tells the official that they did have a TO available. This all happened during one stoppage of play.

It is correctable because it was a unmerited free throw and the T happened prior to the recognition of the error.

There is no way that we can let this happen & play on. We assessed a penalty from bad information from the book. We have to correct. If a coach asks how? Explain, the correctable error rule and the bookkeeping mistake. W

Well, I see how you could do it this way in one stoppage of play. I mis understood the OP, and thought there had been some playing time between the FT and the discovery of the error. I agree with you about how to handle it in the one dead ball period instance. and give the TO, and then go from there.

But I still don't think it's a "correctable error."

What if there had been some playing time? Can I be right in that instance? Is it negotiable?

Once you accept that the book keeping error has occured then it's an easy and obvious step to agreeing an unmerited FT has been awarded. And this is one of the correctable errors that can be fixed if caught in time. If it's not caught in time then the FTs stand, but the coach gets another TO back.

I say drape the ol' 2-3 blanket over this one, because it does not exactly fit anywhere. It is not a true correctable error because the free throws were merited because a technical foul was called. This was a bookkeeping mistake which caused a technical foul. 2-11-11 does not say that all ripples caused by the bookkeeping mistake can be corrected as much as possible, but instances of it have been discussed, such as the player with 5 fouls who was discovered to only have 4 was allowed back in the game. With this in mind, I say when the mistake is discovered, the technical never happened, so take it and any points from free throws out of the book. If a team was awarded a possession improperly because of the (non) technical, that's just one we have to swallow. Furthermore, since this is a bookkeeping correction, this adjustment can be made any time up until approval of the final score.

Let's put a concrete timeframe in here.
The team requests and is granted a time-out. The scorer informs you that this is an excessive time-out. (You never informed the coach that he was out of time-outs as the scorer never informed you.)
You charge the T and then the scorer reverses himself and states that it was in fact one of the team's allotted number after:
a. NO FTs have been attempted.
b. ONE FT has been attempted.
c. BOTH FTs have been attempted.
d. The ball has been placed at the disposal of the thrower for the opponent at the division line opposite the table.
e. The ensuing throw-in has been completed.
f. Team B travels on the ensuing possession.
g. The ball has been placed at the disposal of the thrower for Team A for the throw-in following the traveling violation.
h. Two minutes of clock time and several dead balls later.
i. After the final horn sounds to end the 4th quarter, but before the officials have left the visual confines of the gym.
j. The next day when you return to that gym to work another game, and after he has viewed the video tape of yesterday's game.

If I go over to the table to make sure a coach is out of timeouts, call a technical foul and then they tell me the coach has one T the BS flag would be raised. Especially since this will be the home team. You take away a timeout from the visiting team and they will be screaming bloody murder which will cause everyone to triple check the book.

Dan, did you forget your meds? That post doesn't make a lot of sense. It is either a bookkeeping mistake which can be fixed until the end of the officials jurisdiction or it is a correctable error which must be caught during the proper timeframe or it is neither one and just a horrible screwup that you have to live with. In any case, why would you give the team another time-out? Presumably, you already gave them the one that resulted in the technical foul being charged.

Tastes great...less filling...tastes great....less filling...

It's BOTH a book keeping error and a correctable error. The book keeping error led to unmerited FTs. The correctable error can be fixed if it's caught in time. (With me so far?)

If it's caught in time then the FT's come off, the coach got his TO and we play on, all is well. (Still with me?) If it's NOT fixed (ie caught too late) then the coach paid for that TO with a T. But now we find out that he has 1 more TO due to the book keeping error. He gets that one.

(Go ahead, fire away! I knew my last post would get *someone's* attention! :p )

Great point. Accoring to the OP it has to be after your C. but I don't know which one.

AGREED!!! TASTES GREAT!!

That makes more sense. Of course, now that you state that the team still has one time-out remaining because they bought the other one with the T, I'm baffled by the fact that the team took an excessive time-out prior to its final allotted time-out. :D

Not any weirder than the fact that thousands of St. Louis fans entered the stadium with Game 4 tickets, and saw St. Louis win the series during Game 4, even though it was the fifth game played.

That's funny! :)

Of course, St. Louis is not in Nevada. Maybe that's why I struggle with this concept.

I was taught to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ... not 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, or is it 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5 ..:D

Or you can just count this way
0
1
10
11
100
101
110
111
1000
etc

Didn't someone used to have a signature line about this? Something about

There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

And of course, Padgett would want to call it metric...

Correcting a foul call (personal or technical) is not a correctable error once it has been enforced. It may be a bad call and it might be a good idea to fix it but it's is not a correctable error. It would, however, be a book keeping mistake. Unfortunately, you can't go back and change points that were actually scored as a result of a book keeping mistake. The only thing in the book that can be changed is the number of timeouts.

To illustrate the point. A5 commits a foul that should have been the fifth foul. The table informs the officials that it is only A5's 4th foul. A5 continues to score 12 points over the next two minutes when it is discovered that $5 has 5 fouls. Is it a bookkeeping mistake? Yes. Do we wipe A5's 12 points? No. Points scored stand.

You beat me to it, but I'm with you on this. What happened with notifying the coach when they have used their last TO? This would help eliminate most of these problems.

Mregor

I agree that the "T" is a bookkeeping mistake but disagree on taking off the points. The bookkeeping mistake resulted in awarding unmerited free throws. Why wouldn't that be correctable?

In your scenario the player doesn't become DQ'd until the the table notifies the official and the official notifies the coach. All points would stand in this case.

In the "T" scenario we can correct the unmerited free throw and any activity before the recognition of the error. I would say the "T" happened before the error was recognized therefor I would wipe the "T."

You answered your own question.

Bookkeeping errors can be be corrected anytime during the game up until the last official leaves the visual confines of the court. If the bookkeeping error <b>is</b> corrected, then and only then would you also have a correctable error for awarding unmerited FT's also. But....to correct that, you would also have to catch it before the end of the first dead ball after the clock started right after the last FT for the "T". Any later than that, it's no longer correctable. Just follow NFHS rules 2-11-11, 2-10-1(b) and 2-10-2.

Iow, it's exactly what Dan_ref said early yesterday afternoon.

JR,
Please specify whether or not you believe that the technical foul which has been assessed, and the penalty for which has been applied, can be rescinded as a consequence of fixing the bookkeeping mistake regarding the number of time-outs taken.

Secondly, please state how many time-outs this team now has remaining.

And if I don't want to?:mad:

I answered your first question already, Nevada. You can rescind the technical foul charged to the head coach, as per R2-11-11. You can also at the same time rescind the 2 FT's for the "T" if you catch that error before the first dead ball ended after the clock started following the second FT for the "T", as per R2-10-2 and 2-10-1(b).

The team will have 1 TO left after the bookkeeping correction.

Interesting...
I'm really not trying to be a wiseguy here, I asked for your opinion because I respect your expertise and you provided it. However, I'm still have a couple of sticking points. I would like your help in working through them.

1. While I agree that if the book was in error about the number of time-outs that the technical foul SHOULD be rescinded, I'm not convinced that 2-11-11 is the proper rules citation to allow that. The situation posed in this thread challenges my thinking about booking keeping as I have always considered that to be a record of the game. It records the score, the fouls that are charged, the time-outs, and in some cases the substitutions. So correcting a mistake in the book is simply about erasing a mark or number and/or putting one in another place. Fouls can clearly be changed from one player to another or moved from one team to the other or even erased entirely if they never took place, but can a technical foul which was called, reported, and the penalty assessed be wiped away as if it never happened solely on the basis of 2-11-11? I think that something stronger is needed to back that. Maybe even 2-3. :eek: Although, I hate to go there.

2. If you do make the T disappear, why would the team still have one time-out left? Wouldn't they be at zero now, since they got their five time-outs and didn't suffer a technical foul?

3. If it is too late to correct the awarding of the FTs and they must stand, do you give the team one time-out according to Dan's rationale that they are entitled to five which aren't penalized? They have already paid for a sixth with a T, so they still have one unpenalized time-out remaining. Is that what you would do?

Why use R2-3 when the language in R2-11-11 covers it?--<i>"A bookkeeping mistake may be corrected at any time until the referee approves the final score".</i> When you correct the bookkeeping mistake, you create a correctable error at the <b>same</b> time- i.e. R2-10-1(b)- <i>"Awarding an unmerited free throw".</i> That correctable error can only be corrected using the criteria contained in R2-10-2--<i>"Such error must be recognized by an official no later than during the first dead ball after the clock has properly started".</i> Looks to me like the existing rules cover this situation pretty well.

2) Good point. I didn't read the original situation close enough.The team used their supposed sixth TO before the penalties for that TO were administered. The book would now show 6 charged TO's. After correction of the bookkeeping error, it should show 5 actual TO's taken. Iow, they don't get to use another one.

3) See #2.

If we can rescind the technical, why could we not rescind the free throws shot because of the technical? The technical was not a bookkeeping error, it was caused by a bookkeeping error.

There's time restraints attached to the rescinding of the free throws for the "T", as per Rule 2-10-2.

Can you cite anything that says different?

I follow all of that, but there seems to me to be one intermediate step that is logically needed in there and it is this step that I find difficult.

It seems to me that when you correct the bookkeeping mistake, specifically you correct the number of time-outs charged to Team A, you merely make the technical foul unwarranted, you don't necessarily make the FTs that resulted from that technical foul unmerited. Unless you can point to a specific rule that allows you to rescind the charged technical foul, then the 2FTs that were awarded because of it remain merited.

So JR what is the specific rules book language that states that you can rescind this technical foul? That is what I am seeking. Doing that would make the 2FTs unmerited and create a correctable error situation. It seems to me that unless you are able to do that there is no correctable error.

You haven't cited anything that says you can rescind a technical foul, but I am going along with the way you did it. But logically, if there was no technical foul, there were no free throws.

Respectfully,
Rule 2FREAKING-11FREAKING-FREAKING11

The technical foul is a bookkkeping error that was made as a result of the extra TO bookkeeping error.You have something in the rule book that you can use to straighten out the play. Use it. You don't have any rules language afaik that will allow you to do anything else. And after you do straighten that part of the screw-up out, unfortunately you also <b>do</b> have language governing the unmerited FT's. You have to use that language too.

I fail to see how you can refer to the technical itself as a bookkeeping error.
The ref called it, the scorer wrote it down.

While I am also looking for something more concrete here is the argument that I would currently make in favor of that. (I'm not even convinced that I buy this argument myself.)

Tracking how many time-outs a team has taken during a game is clearly a bookkeeping matter.
Rule 10-1-7 tells us that requesting an excess time-out is a team technical foul. The penalty for any article in section 1 is specified as 2FTs plus the ball for a div line throw-in.
When it was discovered that the time-out WAS excessive, the proper penalty was assessed. However, logically when it was later discovered that the time-out was in fact NOT an excess time-out the penalty must go away.
So the BOOKKEEPING requires for either there to be a penalty or to not be a penalty. So if the bookkeeping was in error then the penalty was also in error. Therefore, the penalty is part of the bookkeeping mistake.

For the counter to this argument see my post numbered 38 in this thread.