The timer should be watching the official for the "chop", not watching to see when the ball is touched. Are we supposed to start the clock on the kick, whistle it dead, and give the stop clock signal all at the same time?

Surely this has been dealt with in a case play somewhere.

P.S. - This should go to a new thread.

Try remembering rule 5-9-4 instead. :) You're treating it as if it doesn't exist.

It's dealt with under NFHS rule 5-9-4 very explicitly. You start the clock on the "touch". If you then deem that "touch" a violation, you stop the clock. That's rule 5-8-1(c).

It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with any concept. You work with what you have. What we currently have is those two rules along with the explicit language contained in those rules.

Again, if you do change the rule so that it reads a "legal" touch, how does the timer now know whether that touch is legal or not, and when to start the clock? Whether the touch was "legal" or not can only be decided by the official, not the timer. If the timer waits to see that the official did <b>NOT</b> blow the whistle for a kicking violation, then the timer is going to be late starting the clock.

I'm not treating it as if it doesn't exist, I'm not sure it applies over and above the other issues I mentioned.

We now know the kicking violation means the throw-in is not completed. This settles the past arguments over whether the "touch" happens before the violation. We now know the violation happens first, and the ball is dead before the throw-in is completed. This gives me definite information that the clock should not have started, and allows me to apply 5-10-1. The timer may not know whether the touch is legal or not, and properly started it, but I can use my definite knowledge to correct it and put the time back on.

OK. If I agree that starting the clock on ANY touch is the rule, and the rule is apparently stated that way, then we start the clock on the touch/kick with a "chop" signal, then blow the whistle and raise an open hand to stop the clock. I'd rather the rule be written to just keep the open hand raised and blow the whistle on the kick, thus no time elapsed.

And I'll say again, the timer should be watching the officials signal and not the ball for when to start the clock. I will even remind them of this in cases like this one. Ever see a clock start early because the timer thought the ball was tipped on throw in? or on down court throw in with the ball tipped at the line, but the clock didn't start until the home team caught the pass and hit an apparent game winner?

Here's the deal. The people you are debating this rule with, believes there is nothing wrong with this new rule, everything is okay. Simple. Now you know why the rulesets are so different between college, hs and pros. There are too many one track minded people in this industry and they don't think out the right side of their brain. There's also something in the water. This is by far one of the dumbest rules federation as come out with. Everyone on this committe needs to be fired for this one. They should all resign immediately because it's clear they are not helping and i don't think they understand the game which is another clear indication they shouldn't be there.

One more thing, you know how we get in trouble when we make bad calls in a game. Well, the committee members should take a hit for this one. We don't want this group of people making no more changes to the NFHS rule sets. No more. A slight modification was all that was needed, instead they went stupid, which kind of tells you a lot about the officials that support this new rule.

WTF?!?!?

(Used with permission.)

Logical and reasonable discussion just ended on this thread. That's "WTF"!

I'm closing my eyes, clicking my heels, and saying to myself, "There's no place like home...", and maybe things will get back to normal?

So, anyway, do you think making the timing correction is reasonable? I understand your point about the timer needs to do what they need to do, but wouldn't we have the ability now to correct it?

I don't think so. JR convinced me. I'm not correcting this either way. The only time you can put back on is what came off after your whistle blew.

Actually, this post tells us far more about you than it does about any other official.

Content of character, indeed.

The concept might be reasonable but we'd need a rule change or case play to do something like that. Right now, we can only make time timing corrections when the timer makes a mistake. In this particular situation, the timer did <b>not</b> make a mistake; he followed the rules.

But the ball isn't dead when the whistle blows, the ball is already dead on the violation. (I looked it up over lunch - Basketball Rule Fundamental #16.) I'm just saying it doesn't matter when the whistle blows, or when the clock starts and stops, there is no amount of time that should legally run off the clock in this situation. The clock should be stopped when it's in the hands of the player throwing it in, it should still be stopped when it's released, it should be stopped while the ball is flying through the air, (following me so far?), and since the kicking violation now happens before the throw-in ends, the clock should have never started. So maybe the timer started it because they weren't sure it was a legal or illegal touch (they're doing their job), but we get to stop and correct the time taken off because we have definite knowledge the clock shouldn't have started in the first place.

So, are you saying in my previous example, where the ball goes OOB with 3 sec. left, and because I'm sneezing and coughing and can't get the whistle blown, my partners and I can't correct that? Even though we saw the ball hit OOB with 3 sec. left, time runs out only because i couldn't get the whistle blown?

See there's the problem; if you're going to allow a timer to do that to the rules, anarchy reigns.

Anyway, didn't the timer make a mistake by starting the clock <B>after</B> a violation occured? They might not have been sure it was a violation, which is why they did their job by starting it. But we can tell them it was a violation, and correct the timing error.

My hand was up (i.e., the stop-the-clock signal), so we're resetting the clock to 3 seconds. :D