Oz
much of what you say exactly mirrors what the NF rule is. The only issue that I see is possibly team control. In FIBA, can one team have control, then the game revert back to a state where neither team has control without either a try on goal (something I failed to list in my haste!), the opposite team gaining control, or the ball becoming dead? I.e., can a team lose "team control" when the ball has gotten away from them but the other team has not yet gained control?

I'm home!! :)

But looks like Mark and Mark straightened everything out! ;)

Only took this Mark about three tries . . .

Hopefully it only takes one in our games!

Another example, that is physically possible
 

A1 is being trapped in his FC at the corner of the division line and sideline. He bounce passes to A2, who is in his FC. However, he uses "english" on the ball to spin it around the defenders.... ball bounces in the backcourt to A2 still in the FC. Violation!

One other that I deomonstrated on court to my son last weekend while we were waiting for his ref class to get there. A1 and A2 front court near division line, A1 bounce passes and hits division line, A2 grabs while remaining front court. Line is backcourt, so ball went backcourt, violation.

Yep!

Or how about the opposite situation? A1 and A2 both straddling the division line. Bounce pass by A1 hits in the FC. A2 catches pass.

Tweet! BC violation!

Tweet! Technical foul on Coach A!

Both, good calls! :)

You're probably right on both calls Tony :)

The coaches that complain about backcourt calls usually 1) don't know the rule and 2) neglected to tell their players not to mess around anywhere near that line! If you make obviously clean plays, you don't worry about the backcourt (or any other) calls. Go borderline, especially at midcourt, you roll the dice as to what the ref sees and calls.

I am going to the the fly in the ointment on this play because there as been two pages of postings and none of them are valid for the posted play because there is not enough information to make a ruling. The only thing that we know from the original posting is that A1 had player control of the ball in Team A' backcourt.

Before we can make an informed ruling on this play, we need to know where B1 was when he tipped the ball and where A1 was when the ball hit him before he retrieved it in the backcourt.

Play #1: B1 had backcourt status and A2 had backcourt status when the ball touched B1 and then touched A2.

Play #2: B1 had backcourt status and A2 had frontcourt status when the ball touched B1 and then touched A2 before touching in the backcourt and then being recovered by A2.

Play #3a: B1 had frontcourt status and A2 had backcourt status when the ball touched B1 and then touched A2 without touching the floor in the backcourt.

Play #3b: B1 had frontcourt status and A2 had backcourt status when the ball touched B1 and then touched A2, but only after touching the floor in the backcourt.

Play #4: B1 had backcourt status and A2 had frontcourt status when the ball touched B1 and then touched A2, and the ball touched in the backcourt and was recovered by A2.

Mark,
Please look at my initial post on the subject, in which I restate the play so we can start with enough information to render a decision. I start with one assumption about what the situation that he tried to describe, then proceed to change the basic circumstances and discuss whether or not the play remains a violation, and if not, what condition was no longer met. I may not have covered exhaustively every possibility, but I tried to give the various permutations that could have occurred and how the call would differ. So if you read all two pages of postings on the subject, I don't know why there was a need to indicate that we were all full of it and failed to notice that the initial description lacked sufficient information to render a definitive opinion. Some of us knew that and tried to give an answer anyway by providing clearer definition so the different possibilities could be addressed. This is far more useful than providing situations with no answers, and hopefully provides the needed information to the person who initially asked the question.

Also, I disagree that we need to know where B was. All we need to know is that A had control, ball was front court while A had control, A was the last team to touch in frontcourt, and A was first team to touch after the ball went backcourt. Where does B's position ever factor into this equation? How would a backcourt vs frontcourt position of B change the call?

[Edited by Hawks Coach on Dec 20th, 2001 at 11:18 AM]

As an engineer, one thing that I always apply in engineering and officiating, is a simple rule that my high school geometry teacher taught me: When you assume you make an A(SS) of U and ME. I stand by my posting. I do not believe that there is enough information to make a ruling.

Mark, you are beyond comprehension. If I had assumed I knew what he meant, stuck with his initial description, then answered based on my assumptions, you are correct - I would have been an A$$. BUT I DID NOT DO THIS!

The whole point of my first post was to cover the full realm of possibilities that the non-specific original post encompassed. I restated his sitch for purposes of providing one possible scenario, then altered the sitch within the general information provided precisely because I did not know what this guy's specific sitch was. DUH!

This allowed me to 1) let the person know how specific the rule is so they know what factors to weigh when making the call (and what information to provide when requesting assistance!), and 2) provide an answer to the situation so they aren't here a week later still wondering. By covering all possible sitches (under his general scenario) AND answering them, I was trying to help someone, not be an A$$. And I did not assume I knew what he was talking about, i provided some information and he can come back with more info if we did not specifically address his problem.

By being rude and failing to actually answer this person's question and demean those of us who did, it seems clear who was being the A$$.

Mr. DeNucci Sr. sir - if A2 had been in the backcourt, there would not have been the post at all since there is no issue. I agree it is risky to assume, but in this case, the post only becomes a case if A2 was in the frontcourt when the ball hit him.

Assuming (there's that word again)A2 was in the frontcourt, it is irrelevant as to the status of B1, so one can make a ruling that is valid.

That ruling is: violation.

Violation
 

I would call a violation, since the ball touched another member of Team A in the frontcourt, then recovered in the backcourt with nobody else touching it.

Man, some of you guys must be getting really antsy about not having bought anything for your wife for Christmas yet.

Maybe, it is the engineering in me or whether I am teaching a H.S. math or physics class or teaching my basketball officiating class or conducting a rules seminar for my association, but I just thought that the play posted was not very well done and that to make an accurate assesement of the situation it needed to be more clearly stated.

Lets lighten up fellas, its the Holiday Season.

Several of us said that (I know I did) prefacing our first posts. From there, it simply turned into a rather random discussion of the FC/BC rules. The fact that the original situation was ambiguous does not erase the rulings that were made on other play situations which were discussed!