playing short by choice
 

A friend brought up a scenario in a movie of fiction concerning interscholastic basketball. With exactly 5 players available and eligible at a point during a game, a coach keeps one on the bench out of personal pique. Legal?

Robert

Not legal. It's probably the first and only time a movie has the facts wrong.

Hoosiers, anyone?

By rule, if 5 players are available, the team must play 5 players. But the coach could just say the 5th player is hurt and not available.

Agreed.
I won't queston the coach, ... unless he has more than one player that is "injured or, otherwise, unavailable".

Here it is straight from the NFHS book, Robert. In other words what Coach Norman Dale did was not permissible. ;)

NUMBER OF PLAYERS REQUIRED
3.1.1 SITUATION: After six players have been disqualified, Team A has only four who are eligible to continue in the game as players. In a gesture of fair play, the coach of Team B indicates a desire to withdraw a player so that each team will have four players on the court. RULING: This is not permissible. Team B must have five players participating as long as it has that number available. If no substitute is available, a team must continue with fewer than five players. When only one player remains to participate, that team shall forfeit the game unless the referee believes this team still has an opportunity to win the game.

This case does not apply to a team disciplinary problem.

[QUOTE=Nevadaref]Here it is straight from the NFHS book, Robert. In other words what Coach Norman Dale did was not permissible. ;)

Well, what was the rule in 1951?

[quote=CoachP]The movie wasn't made in 1951. :)

It makes no difference either way, as I'm quite sure the producers did no research with regard to this matter.

Since we're talking Hoosiers...here's my favorite article written about the movie. What I find funny is how many people I know that have had many of the same thoughts during the movie. It must be a sickness. I can't tell you how glad I was when they finally put out the latest DVD version with the scene about how Buddy got back on the team. That always bothered me. :D

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/040302

Fun article. Interesting thoughts about the black head coach of the other team. There could be lots of reasons why he didn't take a time-out near the end of the game. He probably couldn't call it from the bench back then, and maybe he couldn't get the attention of one of his players. Maybe he already had the play called. I think I read (maybe written by the same guy) that somebody watched a tape of the game and that's really pretty close to how it played out. I have no idea where to confirm that, though.

Thanks, Junker.
Really enjoyed it.

Bingo, Scrappy. When I started out in '59, all TO's had to be requested by a player on the floor. Coach's couldn't request them. They should go back to something like that too. Maybe only allow coaches to request TO's during a dead ball. Allowing a head coach to request live-ball TO's causes nothing but headaches imo. Terrible rule.

The two disc DVD set includes the video footage of the entire Milan vs. Muncie game. You could verify it by watching that.

Mick, the underlined sentence applies.

And I believe that Mick's point is that the team A does <b>not</b> have 5 players <b>available</b> because of a team disciplinary problem.

I agree with Mick.

I wish it did, but fortunately (or unfortunately) there have been enough coaches trying to make the game fair to require a case play, and not enough coaches benching players for discipline to require a case play. ;)

Again agree. If a player is benched, he/she is not <b>available</b> <i>per se</i>. The current rules language does not explicitly cover these cases.

Simmons is usually pretty good. He gets really caught up in NBA stuff, but besides that I read his stuff every week.

100% Agreement
 

From Jurassic Referee: "When I started out in '59, all TO's had to be requested by a player on the floor. Coach's couldn't request them. They should go back to something like that too. Maybe only allow coaches to request TO's during a dead ball. Allowing a head coach to request live-ball TO's causes nothing but headaches imo. Terrible rule."

Jurassic Referee: I agree 100% !!!!

Interesting! Suppose the coach said to the official, "This person is not available as a player", while the player himself said, "Yes I am"? Come to think of if, what if the player added, "And he's not our coach!"?

Actually we could go far beyond that. Suppose officials come to administer a game at a certain place & time between teams A & B. At the appointed time, team B shows up, as does team A and team A' -- that is, two groups, each claiming to be one of the teams that are supposed to play. What do you do? Seems like a similar situation to the one above, just on a larger scale.

Robert

If this is late in the game, then the coach's authority has been established and the player's statement is going to be ignored. If anything, it will solidify my position that the coach can suspend this player if he so chooses.
And really, who are we to say a player can't be suspended effective in the middle of the game?

My head hurts.

If the player's name is one that was submitted to the scorer prior to the start, then he is not suspended for that contest.

http://www.runemasterstudios.com/gra...s/banghead.gif



I love that gif!

Rules citation to back that comment up?

The player obviously has a concussion. Or he will soon when the coach is finished with him for saying he's available when he's been benched.

why do so many officials want to or try to get involved in team/internal matters that have nothing to do with their duties as officials

now if we were officials/mind readers then we could judge but why get involved in team issues. Coach says he cant play, I am NOT going to do my best impersonation of Sherlock Holmes to ascertain if the coach has a valid excuse or not. I would mention to the coach the rule that a coach cannot do this for fair play and then move on.

however we can leave it to Nevada to interpet the word "so" on line 3 of any given rule. sometimes what is written means exactly what it says.

Wrong...you don't get to decide that. That kid could have mouthed off to the coach in the huddle or at halftime in the locker room and the coach has decided the kid is done for the night...if the coach says he/she isn't available, you don't get to disagree with them!

We went over this about a year or two ago, and I could swear Jurrassic was adamant in his view that the player must play unless clearly injured (or otherwise incapacitated). It could have been another poster, but its interesting to see we agree on at least ONE thing!! Maybe he'll change his view now that he sees I agree with him.

Anyway, the scenario presented then was that a coach told the official that player X would not be participating in the rest of the game and was going to be off the team after the game, or something similar, due to an attitude problem. Some here insisted that he must still play if required to fill out 5 on the floor, but I strongly disagree. He isn't "available," per what the coach says.

However, if you are in this situation, you need go to the scorer and say, "player A12 is unavailable, so he won't be re-entering the game at any point." If a coach is going to deem a player unavailable for a non-injury type situation, then he's done. Otherwise, he is exploiting the rules for his advantage and we can't allow that.

Ok, but the kid's not coming in later during OT after being "reinstated", right? Once the coach says he's unavailable, he's unavailable for the rest of the game?

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...

Don't those two statements contradict each other?

According to you player availability is the coach's decision, not yours, so how can you prevent him from playing when the coach says that he is available? :confused:

Sorry, partner, but you can't have it both ways.

Actually you can have it both ways until there exists a real rule. :)

Can too..."Coach, you said that player was unavailable." End of conversation...

You are wise beyond your years.

Except for that Lions thingy.........:D

The case play refers to a substitute being "available". The term "available" isn't definitively defined.

Ok, Mr. Clinton. :D

[off topic]
Available.
That's what this weekend is all about, JR.
It's about the *best available*.

What if, due to some school rule, etc., the player has suited up and has been on the bench since the game began, but has a suspension that ends at, say, 8 PM, which is during the game. Is there some way of communicating that in advance to the officials which would be effective in making that player unavailable before 8 PM, but available at or after 8 PM? Or are you not allowed to add to available players once all have been checked in?

Robert

That to me would seem like it would fall under 10-1-2 and 3-2-2.