Going Out of Bounds
 

Per NFHS 9-3-3: "A player shall not leave the floor for an unauthorized reason."

This is my 5th year officiating HS ball and last Friday was the first time I had to call a violation per this rule. BJV game. Offensive player A1 was trying to lose a defender and ran from one side of the front court to the other along the OOB under the basket. Not just one foot OOB but a good 3 feet from the end line.

I was the L and immediately called a violation. The coach wondered what I called and I told him it was the OOB violation. He was still wondering and started saying things like: "He wasn't going for the ball" and "He didn't touch the ball." The asst coach muttered that he's never heard of such a rule. I told them politely that I can discuss with them after the game and show them the rule from the book. Fortunately, that was the end of that. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to show them the rule after the game.

IMHO, the rule as written is quite ambiguous in this kind of play. I can almost anticipate the follow up question from coaches as "What is an unauthorized reason?" But I'm 99% sure that this is a violation because of more than one case in the NFHS Case Book.

I just wanted to get a sense of what others have been doing or not doing to enforce this rule. Have you had similar experiences where coaches didn't know this rule existed? (I, for one, certainly didn't until I began officiating and read the rule book) How did you handle it?

Thanks.

PS.1. I've seen this play happen a lot in college and in the NBA. I just assume that it is legal at those levels.

PS.2. What would be the penalty if the defense violates?

Help ?????
 

This just happened to me as the Lead a few nights ago. I decided to ignore it because the team with the ball would simply get the ball back. I'm not so sure that I did the right thing, now that I think about it. I do know that we're supposed to ignore this violation if it puts the other team at a disadvantage, as in a breakaway layup situation, where blowing the whistle would stop the easy score.

This is a definite violation in the situation you're talking about. The offensive player was attempting to gain an advantage by leaving the court. You could simply explain to the coach that this violation used to be penalized by a technical foul, but recently was changed to a violation. It is clearly against the rules.

PS1. The NBA and NCAA have different rules for leaving the court. Watching them is of no use in this (or many other) situations if you officiate by NFHS rules.

PS2. The penalty is the same, and the offense would get the ball for a throw-in at the point of the violation.

There have been several threads here about this violation, and the way others penalize it - some use ad/disadvantage on this violation, others are more "by the book", but general consensus is that it definitely needs to be called in the situation you described.

I agree with jdw. Sounds like the right call based on the circumstances. In those situations, when you make an uncommon or obscure call that is correct, give the explanation, and then get away. The time to explain that would be during a subsequent TO, if he still has a question about it. More times than not, he'll say one comment and be done with it when you head the other way. You also have to expect that a coach may never be comfortable that type of call, so minimizing discussion, if possible, will be the novocaine for that needed procedure.