Unusual Strategy Involving the 10 Second Count
 

:confused: Championship girls game (rec. ball) this morning. Team A is really strong, outscoring everybody all season long. Team B coach is tired of his team being humiliated. He feels that Team A runs the score up on everybody. He comes up with a strategy before the game. This league uses a running clock except for fouls. If he feels that the score is being run up, after a made basket by Team A he wants his girl to inbound the ball, let it roll to a stop in the back court before his player touches it. As I understand it, by rule the 10 second count doesn't start until his player touches it inbounds. Team A can not press in the back court until last two minutes of the game (league rule). He wants to let the ball stay there while the clock runs.

How would you guys have handled this? I will tell you later what my partner and I did.

Easy
 

Five seconds to inbound the ball. We have a turnover.

Not so fast
 

The rule says that they have 5 seconds to release the ball on the inbound throw.

Nope. The 5 second count ends when the throw-in is released.

Warn him. If they refuse to play, issue the technical foul.

10-1-5
A team shall not:
Allow the game to develop into an actionless contest


If he continues this pattern, declare the game a forfeit.

5-1-4
The referee shall forfeit the game if a team refuses to play after being instructed to do so by any official. The referee may also forfeit a game if any player, team member, bench personnel or coach fails to comply with any technical-foul penalty, or repeatedly commits technical-foul infractions or other acts which make a travesty of the game. If the team to which the game is forfeited is ahead, the score at the time of forfeiture shall stand. If this team is not ahead, the score shall be recorded as 2-0 in its favor.

I agree with you BsktBallRef. This is quite different than a team running a delay. Although it is drastically slowed down, it is definitely not an actionless contest, as the OP is.

Step one. Warn the coach that he's making a travesty of the game and causing a stop in action.

Step two. Call the T if play didn't pick up after step one.

Step three. Forfeit if step two didn't result in picking up the pace.

I doubt you need to go past step one. BTW, since this was the championship game, was the first place team really that much better than the second place team?

OK, The suspense is just killing me. What'd you do?

Copycat. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

10-1-5 applies to dead ball situations and those where a team tries to keep the ball from becoming live or put into play (see case book last play on 10-1-5). The lack of action rule has not been in place since the very early '90s. Assuming you do not have any sort of backcourt or throw in violation (and you don't), this would be a legal play. It isn't subject to the travesty rule as it isn't a travesty.

The problem here is that additional, non-Fed rules, are in place. This situation would never happen in any regular Fed games that don't play with "extra" rules. Since under normal fed rules, the defense has the ability to go get the ball, what if they decide they won't do it?

Actionless ?
 

Please see Rule 10-5 and note the words "similar acts". I'm not sure, but the situation described in this thread may fall into the category of being a "similiar act" resulting in an "actionless contest". The thread would only occur in a real game with revised rules, in this case not allowing a press, however, a similar question was asked on an IAABO refresher exam a few years ago. Maybe one of our Forum members can recall the situation, the question and the answer from that exam.

Allowing the ball to sit on the floor and refusing to play is certainly allowing the game to become an actionless contest. Since the no BC pressure is not a per Fed rules, there's absolutely no reason 10-1-5 can't be used in this situation. It's certainly a similiar act.

Leave the legalese at the officie, Aggie.

So which team are you going to award the forfeit to, as all 10 players stand around?

You might want to re-read the original post. That will give you your answer.

Well, fine, if you want to be a stickler for things like facts. :)

How about if there's no rule about defense in the backcourt and the same thing happens?

A totally different situation.

We have had situations in our local rec league at the lower grade levels (3rd and 4th) where no back court guarding is allowed at any time where a team has a one or two point lead and gains control in their backcourt with less than 10 seconds to go in the game and their coach just yells at them to hold the ball and don't move.

I don't particularly like it when it happens (about once or twice a season total) but the alternative is to allow backcourt guarding at that level (at least at the end of a close game). We've tried that and it is more trouble than it's worth.

Just one of those things, I guess.

Except for the fact that it in no way applies, I guess you can't.

Look, in the situation given, that of having additional, non-Fed rules, I *guess* one could say the offense is gaining an advantage by staying in the backcourt if the defense isn't allowed back there. I personally don't think that's an unreasonable interpretation, but then again, I don't know because I don't know how the additional rule is worded. As I again said, there's little to no chance this would happen in a plain Fed rule game, but if it does, its legal.

Nothing to do with legalease. 10-1-5 just doesn't apply.

Does 10-1-5 apply to a offensive team that stands just inside the division line with no defense applying pressure? If not, why would it apply to the backcourt situation described?

Aggie, you're applying apples to oranges. This is a rec league situation with a rec league rule that prevents BC pressure. The intent and purpose of the rec league rule is NOT to allow one team to run out of clock while the ball sits in the BC.

They have allowed the game to become an actionless contest. That is covered by 10-1-5. The specific act does not have to be defined anymore that every single type of unsporting behavior has to be defined in the rule book.

First sentence of rule 5-4-1?

That is why in our rec ball, a team may press, but only in the last 2 minutes of the game.

Hey, how are the rest of us supposed to get to 10,000 posts?:D

What we did
 

My partner and I stopped the game, brought the coaches together to talk about the situation. I explained to Team A coach that Team B coach was concerned about running up of the score (although they never show more than a 20 point lead on the scoreboard). Team A coach agreed to do everything he could to keep that from happening. We resumed the game and everything went fine until early in the 4th quarter and Team B coach threatened to employ his strategy again. Team A coach again reminded his team to "not take fast breaks, etc." At this point, I informed Team B coach that if he chose to employ his "new-found" strategy again, we (the officials) would declare the game over and award Team A the win (rightfully so). The game was finally completed with no further episodes. Seemed like the longest game of my life. In the end, I suppose we utilized the "actionless contest" rule that BKTBALLREF mentioned, though I didn't have the specific rule at hand at the time.

I have always wondered about the "actionless contest" rule. I officiated a varsity boys basketball game earlier this year in which A1 stood near the division line in his front court with somewhere between 2:00 and 2:30 left on the clock in the first quarter and Team B stayed back in its zone defense and both teams essentially let the quarter run out (while the fans of both teams booed) since A1 did not initiate play until 10 seconds was left in the quarter.

I suppose one distinction from the OP in this thread is that in my scenario both teams participated in the "actionless contest," whereas in the OP, one team could do nothing about it as only one team did not want to "play." However, the rule does not say anything about not permitting an actionless contest "unless both teams agree."

It's all so silly....

I've wondered about this situation as we have leagues with this type rule and I had coached my daughter in the past where this rule was in force.

When a team A inbounds the ball in their backcourt by A1 rolling it and it has not been touched yet by A2, to me that is a loose ball in Team B's frontcourt and they should be able to go after it, i.e. no team control. Now, I know all hell would break loose from Team A if I weren't to whistle and tell them to get back, but....

Hasn't yet happened and my kids are now too old for me to be coaching and tell them to go get it, nor have I whispered to a coach my interpretation and explaining 'no team control' during a throw in to a rec coach would be futile. Better left alone, I think...

I guess it depends on the local rule, but if you can't (aren't allowed to) defend a "normal" inbounds pass (even though there's no team control), how can you defend / go after a "roll the ball" inbounds pass?

Guess I'm thinking that IF I was still coaching the little tykes with that type rule and 'knowing' rules somewhat better than the average rec coach, I'm thinking of a way to beat the 'no d in backcourt rule' if my kids really needed to get the ball back.

I ref the Upwards basketball league and they too use amended HS rules. They do not have a throw in count or half court count, no closely guarded; the clock runs continuously except for period breaks. No Techs; only change of possession. However, they did write into their rules that the Offense must "purposefully" attack the defense. Supposed to be a non competitive (less competetive, rather) league so less skilled players can participate equally. I still had to warn the coaches who tried to use up the clock holding his team in the backcourt since they did not allow BC defense. So what should be about young kids playing their hearts out still comes down to coaches trying to manipulate rules..... too funny.

20th Century Lack Of Action Rule
 

Bgtg19:

Previous to 1991, officials had to know which team was ahead or behind and call out to the team to "Playball" or a technical foul for lack of action would result. I believe that if the defensive team was behind, or if the score was tied, they had ten seconds to move into a closely guarded situation, which back then would result in a jump ball, not a violation, no alternating possession back then, at the nearest jump ball circle, there were three back then. If the offense was behind, after ten seconds, they had to advance the ball over the old, although we still see it in some older gymnasiums, 28-foot hash mark. In 1982 the warning for lack of action was changed from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.