Stealing the tip

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Back In The Saddle

I had a coach bet me his entire salary that he was right about the jumper not being able to grab the tapped ball, even if the ball had touched the floor.

Good call Back In The Saddle. I'm pretty good with rules, but in the heat of the game, especially in the craziness of a junp ball situation, I'm not sure that I would have caught that one.

Many years ago, when we had several jump balls a game, to start each period, for every held ball, and, if I recall corrrectly, even after a five second closely guarded violation, in three different jump ball circles, I knew the jump ball rules like the back of my hand, before the toss, after the toss, before the tip, after the tip, jumpers, nonjumpers, the whole nine yards. Now that we only toss once a game, at least in Mark Padgett's games, I only look over, and I mean look over, not memorize, the jump ball rules once, at the beginning of each season.

Why can't we flip a coin like they do in other sports, like football, or soccer? At one time I tought we kept doing it as a kind of tradition, because of Dr. Naismith's Original Thirteen Rules Of Basketball. But the jump ball isn't even mentioned in the Doctor's original thirteen rules.