Out of Bounds - Eligible player?
 

I have been a ref for about 10 years, but have been away for the last couple and am finding that the layoff has made me second guess some of the more rare plays that happen. One that has happen recently is the following. A1 is attempting a throw in on the baseline and passes to A2 in the corner. A1 then re-enters the court and recieves a pass from A2...A1 scores a layup. On two occasions I've had the opposing bench screaming that he was "out of bounds" and isnt eligible to score. It's my understanding that although he was out of bounds for the throw in, as long as he has reestablished himself on the court by having both feet in bounds than he is eligible. Who's right?

You are always right. As for the rules, you are OOB if any part of you is OOB. You are where you were until you get where you are going. So on a throw-in, the player is OOB until one foot (not two) are inbounds, as long as the other one is not OOB. Assuming the player comes directly onto the court after making the throw-in, he can receive a pass and score. If he delays returning to the court, or runs OOB and returns to the court at a different spot to deceive the defense, you have a technical foul.

If any part of a player is OOB, the player is OOB.

An airborne player retains the status of where s/he last was.

For A1 to establish inbounds status, s/he has to have:
(a) both feet inbounds and not touching anything inbounds
(b) one foot inbounds, and the other "in the air" and not touching anything inbounds

Once A1 does that, s/he can receive a pass from A2 and score.

This is not football. If you are touching the court area or last touched the court area (if airborne), then you are eligible to do anything legal.

Peace

Thanks to this board, I learned and used that terminolgy twice this weekend to correctly make the call of player A1 in the front court passing to player A2 as he's in the air jumping from the backcourt to the frontcourt (both wreck League).

If a coach asks for clarification, I nicely explain - If A1 were in-bounds and jumping out of bounds to save a ball, A1 is not out of bounds until they touch out of bounds......and coach, you wouldn't want me to call your player out of bounds until he lands now would you? Right, because he still retains his on-court status until he touches out of bounds.

This makes it easy to understand:

4.35.2 SITUATION: Thrower A1 inbounds the ball to A2. A2 immediately throws the ball back to A1. When A1 touches the pass, he/she has: (a) both feet touching inbounds; (b) one foot touching inbounds and one out of bounds; or (c) one foot touching inbounds and the other not touching the floor. RULING: The ball remains live in (a) and (c), but A1 has caused the ball to be out of bounds in (b). (4-4-4)

Thanks
 

Thanks for all the answers!

confused as usual
 

Maybe I'm missing something. Did you call an over-and-back violation on team A? It sounds like you should have, but why use that explanation? It would make more sense to use that if A2 jumped from the front-court to the back-court in order to avoid a violation.