PC or Block

[RecRef]

Originally posted by Peter Devana
Mark,
I can't agree with you on this one.! I think you should rethink it.
I don't believe the intent of the rules would consider a defensive player to be maintaining a legal defensive guarding position while part of him / her are standing OOB.
I would call the foul on the defence.
Pistol

Like the lack of a proper casebook example for the throw-in plane, T or not to T, after the ball has been released and hit, we are in need of direction from above on this one.

Lacking a definitive answer in book or manual I’ll tell why I feel it is a PC call.

A defensive player can legally be out of bounds. Why else would the Simplified and Illustrated make such a strong point, with a picture in 7.1.1 (Out of Bounds section) of a defender having only 1 foot inbounds when the ball handler touches him? If the defender were not legal, than the play would have been over long before the touch.

Then there is the misunderstanding, IMHO, of the use of the term “legal guarding position (LGP).” I have always read the term as saying that after a defender has established and maintained what the rules calls LGP then any contact is a call against the offensive player. This is very different from believing that LGP must be obtained before there can be an offensive foul. - B2 is guarding A2 and has his back to A1 who is driving towards the lane. B2 has not assumed LGP on A1; he does not even know where A1 is. Can A1 legally charge into B2? No, because B2 is entitled to his space on the floor. The same can be said in the situation where A1 runs up the back of B1 who is moving in the same direction of A1 but has never established LGP.

Even before Rule 1 in the Rules Book we have “THE INTENT AND PURPOSE OF THE RULES” section (caps in the book). Here we run into advantage/disadvantage. Now the questions to ask are what advantage does the defender gain by having a foot on the line, or over the line? And to what disadvantage has the ball handler been put? The answer to both is none. Why none, because of 7.2.c, which we will call the 3 Foot rule for lack of a better term. The defender already has legally closed down the path by being with 3 foot of the line.

If anything the defender has taken his legal advantage away from himself by being on the line. What is the width of the average male HS player? Lets say 18 to 20 inches. To that we can add 4 inches for each arm, which are down to protect vital parts. We are now looking at 2ft 4inches. So, if we could freeze the play and draw a line 5ft 4in from the sideline, we would have a so called “line in the sand.” If crossed by the ball handler, any contact will result in a PC.

Whew! -RecRef