Game last night, team A is out of timeouts. A1 asks for and is granted a TO. What is the correct procedure for assessing the T?

Yea, I suppose so. What's your point?

Luke, grant the time-out to Team A. Charge them with a team technical foul. At the conclusion of the TO, administer the 2 FT's and subsequent throw-in for the "T".

Last night my wife (a varsity girls coach) was going thru her score book figuring stats from her teams last game ( a single overtime win) and discovered the home team had taken 5 full timeouts and 2 thirty's. Her scorekeeper had dutifully written down the time of each one of them. I'm sure it won't happen again.

Is this a trick question?

My point is you arbitrarily decide between "upper level" and "lower level" games and alter the rules to match your percieved expectations at each level.

That's all. No big deal.

Okay, I see. Yea, it's not just my perceived expectations, though. In general, around here, we aren't supposed to be as strictly literal with the rules at the "lower levels". If I've got a 7th grade game, with 7th grade scorekeepers and a 22-year-old coach in his first year, and I make them take a T as in the OP, I'd get a call from my assignor if he heard about it. "Cmon, you can afford to be a little flexible in this situation." If it happened even at the freshman level, I might be okay to do this if I handled it correctly. At JV or Varsity the phonecall would go the other way. "You should have given the T."

Frankly, Dan, it's been the hardest thing for me to learn, when to be flexible and when to be rigid (we're talking basketball here, you gutter-snipes out there!!).

Good Lord, Woman! This is a basketball forum, <b>not</b> a bowling alley.

Such talk.....

Umm, where's the tongue-in-cheek smiley icon?

IMO, there are too many people saying the coach is responsible for tracking his timeouts. By rule, this is the table's job. The coach's count has no standing.

Obviously, there is no rule supporting a technical foul for an incompetant table. There is an assumption in the rulebook that the table is competant. In this case the assumption is erroneous.

If the table is competant, then they are cheating. If they are incompetant, then why would you believe that their new count is more accurate than when they said the coach had one more timeout left? You no longer have any reliable knowlege whether the coach has any timeouts or not.

I think we may be missing the point...

What does the book require us to do? I think there is something that requires the coach to be notified when no timeouts remain?

Once again this goes into game management and know what is going on the floor. If it is a tight game we should know. I ask the table often how many time out are left especially in the closing minutes. We talk and both officials should know.

As a courtesy I normally tell them what I have verified in the book when they have a couple left... always when they have one, and always when they they are out.

Making sure of timeouts is as importatnt as checking score and evrifying it is ok going in the waning moments. Is not any different in confirming number of team fouls...

Late in the game my crew will always check with the table to verify time outs and correctness of score, position of arrow and such. As a courtesy I recomend that we inform each bench of the time out situation to prevent these types of things from happening.

If the official scorebook says he has one - he calls it - and you grant it - I'd like to see you justify to your assignor that you gave him a technical foul because he didn't have a timeout left.

This is a game managment issue and it is still ultimately your problem at the end of the day. If you are checking with the table periodically to make sure things are correct you can avoid these types of situations.

Jim, you're making a huge mistake here.

From the original post:
"Team A coach was observed by me asking the official scorekeeper if he had a time out remaining. I witnessed the scorekeeper nodding yes. Coach A calls time out and it is granted. Team B designated score keeper argues they do not have one."

Team A is the home team. The coach's scorer told him he had 1 timeout remaining.

What's your call now, big boy? :)

Two things:

Informing the coach he has no timeouts left is found in the Officials Manual. It's not a rule.

If the official scorer had 1 tiemout remaining, then there would be no reason to notify the coach.

BY RULE Nevada, you are absolutely correct. But it also doesn't say that officials need to address coaches concerns during the game either, and yet we do. I merely replied from a game management perspective. Sometimes we, as officials, use our own best judgement when a situation falls outside the normal guidelines defined in the rulebook. If the coach "thought" he had a timeout, and then because of mistake that I, or my crew, SHOULD and could have prevented, I am not going to penalize them. I will however, give that coach the opportunity to get out of a bad situation without causing further delay or problems. When Team B coach asks why he didn't get a Technical, I respond, "Coach, I screwed up. I didn't check the book and account for the all the timeouts, and I am not going punish that coach or his team for my error. I hope you understand. Thanks."

Is that in the rulebook or officials' manual, NO. Is it good game management, I say yes. IMHO

I don't have my NFHS book on me but somewhere in rule 2 under scorekeeping I believe it says something about notifying, via an official, the coach when his/her team has no time-outs remaining.

Scorer's Duties
2.11.6 - Record the time-out information charged to each team (who and when) and notify a team and it's coach, through an official, whenever that team is granted its final allotted time-out.