Another clock error, shot made situation.
 

This has a little different twist than the others.

So how about the situation where there are 4.5 secs on the clock, A trailing by 2, B1 shooting 2nd of 2 free throws. Misses, ball controlled by A1 in corner(first touching), dribbles twice passes to half court(center circle) to A2. A2 dribbles then passes to A3 on wing opposite table. A3 shoots airball, within 2ft or so of rim, that is tipped in by A4 just before the horn goes.

Pretty sure that this situation would have taken longer than 4.5 seconds. New Trail and New Lead both saw that clock hadn't started at different points. Trail after first dribble by A1. Lead as ball was passed to A2 at center circle.

How would this be handled? Obviously New Trail and New Lead should have shut the play down as soon as they saw the clock hadn't started but they didn't and this has occurred. No one had definte knowledge of how much time it actually took.

Overtime, baby!

Trail should shout, "Start the clock" and keep a count. When trail gets to 4.5, blow the whistle and end the quarter.

So if trail is on table side, he would not have the last second. C, who's opposite the table signal the shot is good. Now where do you go? They get together and trail says clock did not start properly. Homer C ref says it's my primary and we've playing overtime. Now you got a mess.

However, I don't think you kill the play either. Jerry, what did you do?

How are you going to know you're at 4.5? Count "3 Mississippi, 4 Missis?" :D Sorry, I couldn't resist. I agree that the T's count should be good enough to end the game in the situation described.

This would only be 3.5s. 4.5s = 4 Mississippi, 5 Missis. ;)

Let the R decide.

Jerry didn't mention a C in the original play, so it might have been two-person.

Whoever isn't directly involved in the throw-in should glance at the clock to be sure it starts. All the officials should have a count. When it's *clear* that there's a clock error, then end the quarter.

I got this right......
 

I had a very similar sitch happen on Tuesday. Frosh game, end of 1 st qtr. We got 2.5 seconds on clock. Home team has the throw in from endline. Player throws ball in towards division line , ball starts pinballing around . I started a 10 second backcourt count -got to 2 look up clock not moving. I tweet and end the qtr. home coach starts to cry a lil bit i explain I counted ,he leaves it alone.

The scoreclock operator was the home team varsity coach. I start walking towards table and he has got this little smirk on his face, like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar.....

I always pregame this situation. We discuss watching the clock to make sure it starts and stops correctly at the end of the game/quarter. The non-primary official(s) are responsible to make sure the clock starts. The primary official should glance and make certain. If it has not started, blow the whistle and fix the problem. Or keep the count and discuss at the end. But make sure we get it right. THINGS will go wrong sometimes. I always remind mycrew at the end of the game/quarter to be heads up for possible things like this. We signal to each other. If we have a break, talk to each other.

Sorry for the missing details. This was 3-person. I was not on the game heard this second hand from the officials on the game. They explained that C was concentrating on ball since he had the last shot. Which he did count and was correct in counting based on the horn.

Even though the Trail and Lead both had knowledge that the clock didn't start they didn't have a count, so they went to overtime and the team that hit that shot won in the overtime.

They did say that had this shot won the game they probably would have gotten together and probably waved the shot off. Not sure how they were going to pull that off if it happened but that's what they said they were going to do.

I think like some have said the best way to handle this situation would have been to blow this dead as soon as any of the officials realized the clock didn't start.

As another contributing factor, they were having problems with the clock operator. He hadn't wanted to reset the clock at one point even though the officials had knowledge of what the time should have been. Plus A was the home team and this ended up being a little bit of a homer clock operator problem.

Given that there is only 4.5 seconds in the game, I probably would not have blown the whistle to stop the game and reset..

I would make sure I had a count (maybe even a very visible handcount)

When It get to 4.5 my whistle kills the play...

I want to ive both teams the advantage they deserve. I think stopping the clock gives a team an advantage. It either allows them to set up ain inbounds play (most likely farther up the floor than where they secured it) or it allows the defense to set up and defend easier...

Why would you not have asked for a new scorer/timer before you got to the sticky sitchs at the end.

Blow Out already
 

My reasons were two fold. One was the only people around were the JV team and he was the head coach....The second was it didn't make that much of a difference in the game. His frosh team was losing by 25 or so. They ended up losing by 38.....

Though I will definetly put that into my bag of options.......

Let's say that you are the third player to touch the ball in this scenario, and just before you get passed the ball, you see that there are still 3.5 seconds on the clock, so instead of shooting, you make one more pass in order to get a better shot. Then the ref blows the whistle with 3 seconds left on the clock. Should the players not rely on the clock in situations like this?