Absolutely...

I'm not sure I agree. A player who is injured can return later in the game (even if the team goes from 5 to 4 back to 5 players). I think the same might apply to "discipline", although it might warrant a report to the league / conference.

Wow. How did we get 3 pages into a thread with this title, and not mention Chuck's name once?

Bob, you just mentioned what I was thinking. However, there is some precedence into not letting an injured player back out on the court just on the coach's word - in the case of an unconscious player we cannot let them back on the court without a doctor's approval. But I'm not sure I can dictate on my own whether a player is available or not without the information from the coach.

I agree, Bob.

Two years ago in a BJV (1st half), team with 5 players had one acting out.
Coach told me the kid is is sitting on the bench because of his [possibly dangerous] attitude . After some conversation, Coach said give me a "T" if you have to.

I told Partner and opposing Coach what and why. Opposing coach asked if it was for the rest of the game, I asked him if that was what he wanted. Opposing coach said he didn't want his team injured if the kid came back, and I assured him that he would be given no wiggle room if that did happen.
...So, we left it open.

The kid played the 2nd half without incident after the Coach had a coupla words with him at half-time..

(I had related this story on the forum before, and I am sure the verbal exchanges do not perfectly mesh, but this is close enough, ...I hope.)

Ok, I went and pulled out the DVD. Here's the critical portion of the 4th quarter:

1:42 remaining -- game tied, 28-28. Milan is awarded 2 free throws and hits both. Muncie does not request a time-out.

1:30 -- Milan steals the ball, dribbles in frontcourt to let the clock run.

1:00 -- Milan attempts a FG and misses. Rebound Muncie. No time-out requested.

0:45 -- Muncie scores a FG. Game tied, 30-30. Neither team requests time-out. Milan dribbles to frontcourt and holds the ball to let the clock run.

0:18 -- Time-out Milan.

Under 0:05 -- Milan scores a FG. Muncie does not request time-out. Muncie inbounds the ball and heaves a desperation attempt.

But the announcer doesn't say when the clock expired. So it's possible that the horn sounded immediately after the ball went through the basket. In any case, it would've been tough for Muncie to get a time-out and run a play anyway.

So it looks to me as though there are only three points at which Muncie might've been expected to request a time-out in the last 2 minutes of the game: (1) during the possession immediately following Milan's free throws with 1:42 remaining; (2) after Milan's miss at the 1:00 mark; (3) immediately after Milan's basket with less than 5 seconds left.

In (1), they were only down 2 points with lots of time. I can see where you might want the time-out, but it's not panic time; and as I said, the coach may already have called the play during the free throws. In (3), it's unclear if they actually could've requested a time-out; the horn may already have sounded. I think that (2) is the only time when I would have expected a time-out request.

That, of course, assumes that Muncie had a time-out available to take. I think they probably did, because I didn't see a lot of time-outs granted, but I didn't watch the whole game.

So, IMHO, the real-life coach of Muncie Central didn't "screw up" the clock management all that much at all. Now for Hollywood purposes, to make it more dramatic, they added more back-and-forth action and so there were more opportunities to get a time-out.

As for Spike Lee's ruminations about the movie inserting race-issues into the story by having black players on Muncie (making a black vs. white matchup), Muncie actually did start 2 black players. I couldn't tell from the game film the ethnicity of the head coach.

A couple other things I noticed. Milan violated during the opening jump ball. One player very obviously stepped into the jump circle before the ball was tipped. That player then batted the loose ball to another Milan player to contol the ball.

Also, a Muncie dribbler was called for charging and Milan was awarded a free throw. I guess there was no player control foul back then.

Finally, early in the 2nd quarter, the announcer said "over his back"!!

I have to disagree - the only medical judgements we're allowed to make are (1) if a player is, or apparently is, unconscious; (2) if a player has an open wound or blood on his uniform and/or person; (3) illegal/unsafe equipment (if a player broke his arm right after the opening tip, got put in a cast in the training room, and came back for the 2nd half). Anything else is opening a big can of worms.

Rocky, without being overly confrontational and stating that you are wrong, I will just say that I respectfully disagree. I think that there is a clear difference here.

A suspension is something that is imposed through the league office due to regulations of the governing body. A benching for mouthing off is a coach's decision. Those are often listed in box scores as DNP coach's decision.

I also believe that an official has clear rules support to tell the coach that he has to have five on the court, if he has five healthy and non-disqualified players. That is what the rules and case book both say.

But, hey, when you are the R, you make that call. :)

Mark, I think we are actually in agreement. I was only trying to point out the precedent of our being able to keep a player off the floor, in the case of possible unconciousness, even if a coach says the player is available. But, I agree it is not something we should be concerned with otherwise; usually, if the coach says a player is available or not, I'm taking their word for it.

You guess correctly. It was defined as a common foul in dem long lost days.

Went back and read your original post; after further review, I agree that we were saying the same thing.

I think I'm leaning towards letting the coach determine these things, too. If a player becomes "unavailable" (for a non rule-prescribed reason), so be it. Said player is then done for the night and I'll be sending my assignor an e-mail about the situation.

Gee, Mr. Official, this player obviously has a concussion. He cannot remember who is in charge of the team bench. We certainly don't want a player out there with a concussion.;)

I guess I'll be the one to disagree with this statement - and maybe it's just due to different parts of the country - but "suspensions" are enacted by coaches, school administrators, etc., many times. Sometimes it's by rule (a league has a ejection=suspension following game rule) and sometimes it's not. Perhaps a kid was caught fighting and the principal suspends him from all activities. Maybe the coach finds out a kid isn't keeping up on his grades and suspends him until he gets his coursework in order.

Or, perhaps a kid mouths off to the coach during a game and the coach suspends him for the remainder of the game. Obviously I don't think this answers the question of what makes a player unavailable from a game management perspective, but suspensions happen for lots of reasons.

All that said, my old high school coach would often send players who played a quarter or two in JV ball (we had a 5-quarter/night rule here) to the locker room if it was late in the JV game so that they wouldn't be forced to go back into the game if someone fouled out. If I were a coach and was benching a player for the remainder of the game, I'd send him to the locker room so there wasn't any question he was unavailable.

And, if I were the coach, I would not do that.
If I could not trust the player to do the right thing directly in front of me, I would not trust that player alone in a lockerroom, especially the other schools' lockerroom.

Point taken. I suppose it could depend to an extent on the player and your history with him.

Ok, then without being overly confrontational and stating that you are wrong, I will disagree with your disagreement...suspensions are public acts undertaken by schools, leagues, etc...that particular kid lost his cool in the locker room at halftime and cussed out his coach - he will probably be officially suspended the next day, but the coach also decides he's done for the night...when someone fouls out and I go to coach and say "We need a sub" and coach says "Don't have one" and I say "What about #12 sitting there" and coach says "He's unavailable" - that's all I need or want to know...I don't get to satand there and say "Yes he is available. He's sitting right there"...that's not the way it works - it's the coach's decision whether he has a kid available...as someone else asked earlier, if that game goes into OT and coach wants to put #12 in - he ain't coming in because he's unavailable...