What is the correct procedure?
 

Team A inbounds the ball at the baseline (backcourt). Player dribbles to midcourt. I notice that the clock never started. (actually my partner noticed, the clock was behind me) I take the ball back to the baseline and Team A throws the ball in again. Only this time, Team B decides to press. Team B steals the ball and scores. The coach argues that I should have taken some time off the clock and gave them the ball at midcourt since it wasn't their fault that the clock didn't start. He had a point. I told him I honestly didn't know the correct procedure, but did what I thought was correct. Was I wrong?

The coach was correct.

Team A advanced the ball to midcourt and should get the ball back at that spot no matter what else is done. That was the location of the ball when it became dead to address the clock issue.

Since the player had just dribbled to midcourt, you would have had your backcourt count to use for correcting the clock....at least as much as your backcourt count should come off the clock, perhaps more if you had additional counts after crossing the midcourt line.

You had a 10 second backcourt count going, right?

If so, subtract that from what's showing on the game clock and go with a throw-in at mid-court.

If you didn't have a 10 second count, the throw-in is still from mid-court (nearest point to where the ball was when you blew the whistle), but unless you have definite knowledge, you leave the clock where it was. Since the ball was touched inbounds, you're not going to go all the way back to the baseline (i.e., no do-overs).

You should know how much time would have run off the clock by your back court 10 sec. count, and yes the ball should have been taken out at mid-court or the closest point to where the ball was whistled dead.

You could have used your 10-second backcourt count as "definite knowledge" in this situation. Blow the whistle as soon as you know the clock didn't start. Take off the number of seconds used according to your backcourt count at the time of your whistle. Give the team with the ball a throw-in at the spot closest to where the ball was when the whistle blew. Your butt is covered under NFHS rule 5-10.

If you don't blow your whistle until the ball is in the front court though, you can't reset the clock unless you had accurate knowledge somehow of how much time was used until you blew your whistle--example-> backcourt count followed by an immediate 5-second closely guarded count. If you don't have accurate knowledge, then you would have to go back to the original throw-in spot on the endline without taking any time off the clock.

Rule to back that up?

I didn't have definite knowledge. My backcourt count was at 4 (I think, can't remember off the top of my head) when the player crossed midcourt. Then she dribbled into the frontcourt and was not guarded closely. My co-official blew the whistle after he noticed the clock, but the ball had been in the frontcourt for 3 or 4 seconds. It was one of those gyms where we only had one clock and it was behind me.

Here we go again....:rolleyes:

I disagree completely. There is no rules backing for your statement above. Giving the offensive team half-court with no time taken off makes no sense at all- to me.However, there also is no rules backing for my take that it simply a do-over if there is no accurate count.

This play is not covered definitively under NFHS rules.

Maybe we can agree to disagree and cut off the usual 15-page argument about it. Anybody interested can just use the search function to find one of the many old arguments that we've had on this exact same play, if they're so inclined. We've certainly discussed this one to death.

7-5-4.

Ball became live when it was touched inbounds (whether the clock started or not), A had control (team and player) and the ball became dead when the official sounded his whistle.

I'll sign that truce.

There isn't a rule covering either, and whichever way you rule, disadvantages one team...so it's 2-3 and neither is wrong.

Put me down on Dexter's side in this one, but I'm certainly not going to get into another http://www.runemasterstudios.com/gra...ages/argue.gif with JR.

I'm still confused:confused: !

If it happens again in the future. Should I :


A. Take the ball back to the original throw-in spot and not worry if the defense presses?

B. Estimate the time elapsed. Tell the clock person to run off 8 seconds and give them the ball in the frontcourt?

Well, us "experts" here are somewhat divided. Some will say A, some will say B. (See above for how the vote plays out.)

This may be a good play to talk over with your interpreter, so at least your entire association will be on the same page.

C. You or your partner(s) glance at the clock as the ball is inbounded to make sure it starts correctly.

JR:

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra: "Its deja vue all over again." But I do not believe that we can agree to disagree on this play. It does not matter whether this thread goes fifteen pages or thirty pages, Camron and I are right on this one for the same reasons that we have given before.

So lets go back to something that we can all enjoy: bashing Old School. I know that was cold wasn't it.

On a lighter note, have a nice summer.

MTD, Sr.

Quote:
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I'm still confused:confused: !

If it happens again in the future. Should I :


A. Take the ball back to the original throw-in spot and not worry if the defense presses?

B. Estimate the time elapsed. Tell the clock person to run off 8 seconds and give them the ball in the frontcourt?
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Dave,
I am NEVER going to do A. I cannot justify a do-over in an NFHS game. You need to make your own decision of how to handle this situation should it ever arise in one of your games. So I will give you some points that helped me make my choice.

First, the NFHS rules state that you cannot "estimate" the time elapsed. You have to have DEFINITE knowledge. In this case, that means you had a count of some kind or the official timer started counting when he noticed that the clock malfunctioned and wouldn't start. In short, if you don't KNOW, you can't change the clock in an NFHS game.
(That being said, you can confer with your partners and make an intelligent decision. Look at what the NCAA now recommends. I posted it a bit further down.)

Secondly, the NFHS has yet to come out with a clear play ruling on this, but the NCAA has. Since people have made the case that the NFHS rules are unclear and that the play should be handled in one of two ways, you need a reason to pick one method over the other. I would advise you to follow what the NCAA wrote on this. That way you at least have something in writing to point to. Note that I am not advocating that you do something contrary to NFHS rules, I am merely stating that you should enhance your decision by drawing upon this further knowledge since you may have to rely on 2-3 to make a decision. Additionally, the NFHS usually follows what the NCAA does after a few years, so you might be ahead of the game.

Here is what the NCAA published in a bulletin (2/21/07) on the women's side last season:

1/25/07 Correcting a Timer’s Mistake
Interpretation: The following interpretive ruling should replace the ruling in A.R. 120. This ruling was changed to clarify that officials must utilize all available resources and information when making a decision regarding game and/or shot clock time adjustments. Officials may not always know the exact time, as stated in the original ruling, which shall not prohibit them from adjusting the clock(s) appropriately.

Play: A.R. 120. With a few seconds remaining on the game clock in the first half, A1 makes a throw-in to A2 (game clock not started—official timer’s mistake). A2 dribbles into the front court and misses the try. B1 recovers the rebound and dribbles the full length of the playing court. As the player passes the bench, the coach of Team A notices that the game clock has not started and calls the mistake to the attention of the official timer, who starts the game clock. With one second left on the game clock in the half, A2 fouls B1. The bonus is in effect. Time expires before the official timer can stop the game clock.
Ruling: A2 shall be assessed with a personal foul. The referee cannot correct this official timer’s mistake unless he or she knows relatively how much time had elapsed while the game clock was stopped. The referee shall conduct a reenactment of the sequential occurrence of the play to determine that relative time. To assist the referee, information may be attained from the official timer or from the use of an official courtside monitor, when one is available. After a conclusion has been reached, the referee shall put the determined time on the game clock Play shall be resumed at the point where the ball was located when play was stopped to correct the timer’s mistake. In this case, B1 shall be awarded the entitled free throw(s) for A2’s personal foul and play shall be resumed from that point with the corrected time on the game clock. A correction is only permitted when it falls within the prescribed time frame limit as described in Rule 2-5.1.f and Rule 2-6.1.
__________________________________________________ _________________

Play 2: With 4 seconds remaining on the game clock, A1 makes a throw-in to A2. The game clock does not start when the throw-in is touched inbounds by A2. The ball is passed twice, a shot is taken and the rebound is tipped out of bounds by B1. Prior to placing the ball at the disposal of A1 for the throw-in, the official realizes that there are 4 seconds on the game clock indicating that the game clock was not started on the previous throw-in.
Ruling 2: Rule 2-6.1 states that when an obvious timing mistake has occurred because of failure to start or stop the game clock properly, the mistake shall be corrected only when the referee has definite information relative to the time involved. The officials have definite information that the game clock did not start. If a monitor were available, the officials would be permitted to go to the monitor to determine the correct time to be placed on the game clock if any time remains (2-5.1.f; A.R. 8). If a monitor were not available, the officials are to confer with each other and/or check with the official timer to determine the correct time to be placed on the game clock or if any time remains in the game. By rule, a decision must be made relative to the time involved. The officials are not permitted by rule to leave 4 seconds on the game clock and repeat the initial throw-in by A1. According to NCAA rules, there are no ‘do-overs’.

Additionally, this quote also appears in that bulletin:
"According to NCAA rules, there are no ‘do-overs’. Officials commit errors and timer’s make mistakes and only a select few of each are permitted by rule to be corrected. Officials must know which errors or mistakes are permitted by rule to be corrected and what time limits restrict those corrections."

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If you didn't have a 10 second count, the throw-in is still from mid-court (nearest point to where the ball was when you blew the whistle), but unless you have definite knowledge, you leave the clock where it was. Since the ball was touched inbounds, you're not going to go all the way back to the baseline (i.e., no do-overs).
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Team A advanced the ball to midcourt and should get the ball back at that spot no matter what else is done. That was the location of the ball when it became dead to address the clock issue.

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The rules are present and are very clear....I'll quote them...

Rule 7-4-4 The ball is awarded out of bounds after the ball becomes dead while a team is in control, provided no infraction or end of a period is involved, as in 7-5-4.

• So, the ball becomes dead at the whistle, right? Yes.
• Was team A in team control? Yes.
• Was there a goal or infraction involved? No.

Every element of 7-4-4 has been met and refers us to 7-5-4.

Rule 7-5-4...After a dead ball as in 7-4-4, any player of the team in control shall make the throw-in from the designated spot out-of-bounds nearest to the ball when it becomes dead.

Where does it say to take it out? Closest spot! Q.E.D.
Note there is no consideration for timing errors mentioned...corrected or not.

Yup, all the same old lame arguments. And all the same old lame arguers insisting they're right without being able to offer any definitive rules backing for it.

Iow, same old, same old.......:rolleyes:

JR:

What was lame about Camron's latest post. He quoted all the pertinent rules that apply to this play. And these are the same rules that I have also quoted in a previous thread. The rules are clear in this case. There is no do over whether it is NFHS, NCAA, or FIBA in this play.

MTD, Sr.

I still completely disagree with you, Camron and Filibuster Freddy from Nevada, as well as anybody else that agrees with y'all. The rules that Camron cited are neither pertinent or relevant to this particular situation. You want to move the ball 60 feet or so up the court while saying that it took <b>ZERO</b> seconds to actually move the ball up those 60 feet. Heckuva idea.

The play is simply not definitively covered under NFHS rules. If you, Camron or anyone else wants to argue this for another 20 pages, hey, be my guest. Imo it's probably easier to dig up all the old, identical threads to this and read them, but hey, if you want to resurrect all the old inconclusive arguments, go ahead. WOBW though imo.

Same sh!t, different day......:rolleyes:

JR - Since the ball was in the back court there should have been a count so they seem to be talking about putting the ball in play at the spot of the dead ball with that time off the clock. I do not see a problem with that!

I do have a problem with do overs period-

Dave - I agree with Mark and Nevada here this is a game managment issue and I would in absence of specific NFHS coverage of the situation use the NCAA direction for this situation it is the simplest and fairest way to put the ball back in play and noone in the arena but you and your partner(s) knows if there was DEFINATE knowledge of the time that ran off the clock or not.

Discuss it - put the ball at the OOB point when the ball became dead and take time off the clock. Then Tasser the "Timer" and move on.

As a side note - I was instructed by a DIII assignor that when doing this it is better to give a number such as 10:28 - rather than 10:25 or 10:30 it gives the impression that you are on top of the situation rather than taking a guess.

I'm not going to get in the middle of this except to say that I think it IS covered definitively by the rules -- but poorly. Camron's argument is not debatable, IMHO. Ball's dead, team control, no foul = nearest spot.

That is a bad and unfair result, but it's the result that is dictated by the throw-in rules. Again, JMHO.

I don't agree with this whatsoever. You put up the time that should be up. You don't add seconds or remove seconds to make it look better.

For every 5 times this happens, there is a 20% chance that the time to put on the clock ends in a 5 or a 0. It will happen that 10:30 is the correct time to put on the clock.

Back when I was doing provincial championships, a power-that-be told me to always put up an odd number - it looks more accurate. Back then I believed that philosophy. Now I think it's hogwash. You put up what it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

This assumes that you know the time that should be up. There are people who will say that even if you don't have definite knowledge, you should make up a number when the clock has obviously screwed up. And when you make up the number, you should not give a number that ends in 0 or 5, because it looks like you're just making it up. Those folks figure it's ok to make it up, as long as nobody knows that you're making it up.

Skippy, with all due respect.....
http://www.gifs.net/other/crit_suc.gif

What interests me is that when you take off x seconds - you're on average really taking off x.49 (9 repeating) seconds.

Here's my justification, for certain clocks:

When the display changes from 8:00 to 7:59 immediately at the beginning of a quarter, and not a second after the clock is started, there is really 7:59.99, .98, .97, .96, you get the idea remaining in the quarter. The upper limit is 7:59.9 (9 repeating). The lower limit is 7:59.0 exactly.

That difference is almost 1 full second. If the clock says 3:45 and you have to remove 6 seconds, then you are changing the clock to read 3:39 - which I'm certain the clock interprets as 3:39.0. If the clock memory is 3:45.98, then the resetting loses .98 seconds.

If you think that .98 seconds isn't much, ask Christian Laettner, Michael Jordan, or even the 1972 US Olympic team. ;)

Edit:

I will propose a second auxiliary button on a scoreclock: Adjust. User presses Adjust, then 1 to remove seconds (or 3 to add), then the number of seconds to adjust the clock by.

My first additional button is called Factor. It works like this: you press Factor, then two digits such as 85, then Factor again. This tells the clock to remove a second from the display (and internal memory) every 0.85 seconds. Used in a blowout only, you can save 288s, or 4min 48s!! :D

Oh, I finally see what you're grumbling about.

In this play you simply can't magically move the ball to mid court without taking *some* time off the clock.

OTOH you cannot have a "do-over" by putting the ball back on the endline.

That leaves 1 answer: decide how much time to take off & put the ball where it was when you finally woke up & realized the clock never started.

This philosphy only applies when there is not definate knowledge

With definate knowledge that it should be 10:38 you put 10:38 on the clock - if there is definate knowledge that it should be 10:40 then that is what you put on the clock.

Sticky because by rule (I believe) we're not allowed to do that.

Dan's post is interesting. :)

What if this happened in the front court and there was no counting? When you discover it, could you just yell to the timer to start the clock. I could see how this might not work near the end of a period, but otherwise it would make sense. With no knowledge of the time run off, blowing the whistle would do no good, and would only cause the team in possession to have a throw-in.

I agree. Just tell them to start the clock. There's no sense of giving B a potential advantage.

I've worked into my game in the dying seconds to count anyways - and I make it very visible. Some courts I do have very green time keepers. In the event they do forget to start the clock in the frontcourt, I know exaclty what time to take off.

Actually, really good clock operators can (depending on the clock model) just key in the different times in less than a second, so that the clock appears to be running normally. I've known a few guys who have done it in football; might be a bit harder in basketball.

I don't think anyone has caught this and commented yet (I'm not sure, because my eyes started glazing over towards the end of the first page).
You had definite knowledge of 4 seconds to half-court. At minimum, you could have inbounded the ball at half-court with 4 seconds removed from the clock.
Again, any point with more than a minute (this number is arbitrary) on the clock, just yell towards the operator to start the clock.

I agree. There are those that don't understand that definite knowledge is not the same as complete or exact and will assert that unless you know ALL the time that should have passed, you can't take anything off. All the rule requires is that you only take off as much as you KNOW and no more, no less. If you have counts adding up to 17 but have gaps in the middle of the count, you take off 17. You definitely know that those 17 seconds passed. You don't know how much else passed in the gaps, so you don't take off anything for the gaps.

That's always been my interpretation.

Yup, put me in that group. Apparently you can also put in that group the people who wrote NFHS 5-10 also. That rule says that you can't take time off or put time on the clock without knowing <b>exactly</b> by using definite or official information how much time is involved.

It might be a very good idea for you to talk to someone about your interpretation, Camron. Your take on it is completely wrong, rules-wise, and also goes completely against the purpose and intent of that particular rule.

Might be a good idea to check your interpretation with your association's rules interpreter.

This, coming form the guy who's going to take the ball, which was legally advanced to midcourt, back to the endline if he can't figure out how much time to take off the clock...all despite very clear rules that make no exception for timing mistakes???? :confused:

As far as the rule goes, do you mean this one:
<DL>

SECTION 10 TIMER'S MISTAKES
<DD>ART. 1 . . . The referee may correct an obvious mistake by the timer to start or stop the clock properly only when he/she had definite information relative to the time involved. <DD>ART. 2 . . . If the referee determines that the clock was not started or stopped properly, or if the clock did not run, an official's count or other official information can be used to make a correction.</DD>

</DL>I don't see anything in there about EXACT or complete time. It says "definite information relative to the time involved". I definitely have information that is relative to the time involved. If I know I counted to 7, that it definite information. If I later counted to 4, that is also definite information. I can use whatever definite information I have to make the correction. I can't use anything else, to make a bigger correction.

What you can't do is take the two counts, add them together, then guess at a few more seconds for the time between counts. That is adding information that is not definite, but a guess.

The purpose and intent is to not allow guessing but to use only real information. The purpose is NOT to require an unbroken set of counts in order to make a correction.

Yup, I mean the rule that states that you must have <b>EXACT</b> knowledge, not <b>SOME</b> of the knowledge. Are you really insisting that you might have 4 seconds for a backcourt count and then the team plays for 15-20 seconds in the frontcourt, you are now gonna blow your whistle and take 4 freaking seconds off the clock? Feel free to do that. I'd rupture something laughing if I tried that.

so have we decided whos is bigger?

i hate to say this however unless we have definite knowledge i have to side with JR and go back to the previous spot where we did and redo.

what if offense has the ball on the baseline near low post and we stop play and the player was trapped. now they get a good inbounds position and on top of that if we have no idea how much time to take off its just a reminder to the table to start the clock. to many variables here.

just take it back to the spot of last knowledge of the time and play ball.

New play same situation:

1) B1 makes a free throw.

2) A1 takes the ball out-of-bounds for the ensuing throw-in and passes the ball inbounds to A2.

3) A2 immediately fires a baseball pass to A3 who is sprinting down the court.

4) A3 catches the ball in Team A's free throw lane and immediately shoots a layup which is successful.

5) At this point, the officials discover that the game clock as not started.

Question: a) Does A3's field goal count and the game is resumed by a throw-in by Team B anywhere along the endline in its backcourt? Or b) Does must Team A have to do its throw-in after B1's free throw all over again?

MTD, Sr.

I'm voting (a), but I'm a bit biased. Great situation, Mark.

Show me that rule...the one that says "exact".

I may not actually do it but the rules say I can. I sure as heck wouldn't blow my whistle and make the team start over in the backcourt as you've suggested is the thing to do.

(a) would be the proper choice and the officials are to confer and remove time from the clock. That is according to the new INTELLIGENT NCAA ruling, which basically tells the officials to use, the monitor if there is one, but if not, their best judgment to come up with how much time to take off. The NCAA very specifically says no do-overs.

Even in an NFHS game, one cannot nullify game action just because someone forgot to start the clock.

I'm feeling a bit lazy today, JR. But can you quote for me this rule that says we must have "exact" knowledge? I thought it said "definite" knowledge. I can have "definite" knowledge that 4 seconds have gone off, even if I know it was actually an indeterminately longer time.

"Exact" would be too high a standard to ever implement. Practice swinging all you want, but you'll never have a 5 second count that lasts "exactly" 5 seconds.