3 Inbounding Questions

[ken roberts]

Please clarify for me. I believe it is a technical foul for the defender to touch or grab or hit the ball while in the possession of the opponent player inbounding the ball, whether it is across the plane or not.

As Rusty said, "See Case Book p. 51, 7.6.3A and 7.6.3F. There is no violation since it is a live ball and the defensive restrictions on a throw in deal only with penetrating the throw-in boundary plane"

The held ball concept if very foreign to me. I assume you mean that the offensive player reached across the plane with the ball and the defender grabbed for a held ball. If you mean behind the plane, this would open up a whole new strategy that would be impossible to enforce.

Not really since usually the thrower-in doesn't reach across the plane when throwing the ball in. Also, if he does reach across and it gets stolen, he'll know damn well not to offer the ball like that in the future.

To date, i've never had the defender legally touch the ball while in the hands of the inbounder.

Additionaly, it is a technical foul on inbounder should he intentionally touch or strike the defender with the ball for any reason. For example, the inbounder while holding the ball to inbounds, reaches out and hits the opponent on the top of his head to either attempt to move him back or just to be ornery to the opponent. Right or wrong??

Well obviously the inbounder can't just bop the defender over the head while holding the ball. Nor can he throw the ball at the defender with undue force or in an attempt to hurt him.

But what if the inbounder gave a shove to the body with the ball? I've never thought about it, but can a player commit a personal foul using the ball as the sole point of contact?

I would tend to say no, since while the hand is part of the ball (4-24-2), i don't think that one could say that the ball is part of the hand to call an illegal use of hands foul. Of course, usually this isn't an issue since the defender simply take the ball away. On a throw-in, many defenders wouldn't realize that once the ball crosses the boundary its fair game.

Thus, if the shoving was hard or unsportsmanlike, i'd call the T. Otherwise just play on. Anyone else wanna stab at this?