Technical for excessive timeouts?
 

With 4 seconds remaining in a 7th grade game, team A was to receive a 1 free throw plus bonus. 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. In addressing the issue with official scorekeeper it is realized they do not have one. Should technical be assessed or is this a reversible officiating error.

If you were to click on search and type in (excessive timeouts) you will see this one been discussed before in detail.

No TO granted. I explain to the coach that he/she CAN have the TO, but it will cost him/her a Technical Foul. If he/she doesn't want it at that point, line up the players and shoot the Free Throw. I would have a hard time penalizing a coach when the official scorer made the mistake. There is also preventative officiating. YOU check to make sure he still has a TO. Let him/her know when they are out, or let them know how many TO's they have left. YOU go look at the book, and maybe even keep a mental notebook. As the official, there is a good chance you could have prevented this by being in regular communication with the official scorer. But that is just my opinion.

If Team A's scorer informs the coach of Team A that he had a time-out remaining and he didn't, I'd have a difficult time not assessing a T.

I would like to know how they determined that the coach was actually out of TOs. I mean, the official scorekeeper says he has one left. The opponents scorekeeper says he doesn't. 4 seconds left...hmmm, I would have to consider that B was trying to lure me into calling the T on A for excesive TOs. I guess you guys are much better game managers then I am because I honestly don't think that I could remember how many TOs a team has called when there are 4 secs left. That's why we have a book. Now, if the official book indicates they are out and the scorekeeper said the wrong thing then that is one thing, but if the official book says they still have one then it would be interesting to see how they determined they really didn't. Just curious.

That's easy, Johnny.

How about if the visiting book has the exact time written down that each TO has been used, and the home team just has an X?

I've seen it happen.

WARNING: THERE IS NO RULES SUPPORT FOR THIS AT ALL!
We now return to our regular discussion.
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The coach should have kept track of the time-outs better himself or had a manager or asst coach do it for him. The official should charge the team technical foul.

JV or Varsity game, you say, "Coach, you asked for it, you got it. And by the way, you have to pay (meaning a T) on the way back onto the floor."

Lower level, this early in the season, you quickly decide whether or not to assess. Then whichever you choose, you do with a confident and cheerful demeanor, telling the other coach you'd do the same for him.

By the book, yea, it's a T. It's also not a correctable error (Study 2.10). But with young coaches, young table people, inexperienced refs, you can get away with an oops! sorry if you do quickly and certainly. Don't waffle, or hesitate, and just go for it.

This is why I periodically check with the table during the game to make sure both books match. Time-outs, team fouls, players in foul trouble (3 or 4 fouls).

Once everything is matching going into the last 5 minutes of the game I can keep track for the rest of the game in my head.

Whether the coach has been keeping his own count or not is irrelevant. The coach's count has no standing, as only the scorekeeper's count matters. The coach could think he has all his timeout's left and would still be assessed a technical because according to the official scorebook has has exhausted his timeouts.

After further review, I've come up with the definitive answer. The visiting coach should be charged with a technical foul for excessive timeouts, and the home team should be charged with a technical foul for unsportsmanlike conduct for giving incorrect information. We must assume that the table has deliberately given incorrect information, as the home team is supposed to provide competant official scorekeepers. This scorekeeper is not performing her/his duties properly, since they have not given the coach the required warning when the last timeout was used and they have also given incorrect information. The school should also be reported to the league officials.

WHOA!!!!!

First off, I'd like to see some rule support for a technical foul for "giv[ing] incorrect information.

Second, before you call a T, you better have PROOF that the home scorekeeper did this on purpose.

Third, this is a 7th grade game. I've made mistakes on the book in D-I college games. No one has ever recieved a T because of it.

Finally, consider what you're doing. You're actually assessing a technical foul ON AN OFFICIAL. What happens when your partner incorrectly calls a travel against the home team? Do you T him up and count it towards the home team's foul count? Yikes. I've seen bad table crews, I've seen biased table crews, but I have rarely seen a timer/scorer who deliberately throws the game toward their team.

Rarely? I've never seen it. And if there is such a tablecrew, they'd better be getting a lot more out of it than a 7th grade team is going to pay!!

We recently had a long tedius discussion about officials with full college schedules taking a small number of HS games to qualify for playoffs.

Would you agree that for these people HS varsity is "lower level"? What advice do you give them about how to handle "lower level" games?

When I said lower level, I meant lower than JV and Varsity, which is what I had just been talking about in the previous sentence.

Mabye I'm being too subtle for you.

Isn't your line of "upper level" and "lower level" rather arbitrary?