Here's the situation. White hits a 3 to go up by 3 with 1.3 seconds remaining. Black calls two consecutive TO's to set up their desperation play. Coach informs me "We're going to pass the ball to 1/2court and call another TO." All cool so far. Black inbounds with a pass that gets tipped by white at halfcourt and the horn goes off with no control by either team. The problem arises in that the horn has sounded prematurely and there is still 0.9 secs showing on the clock. The timer is as confused as the rest of the gym as to what happened. What do you do and why? I'll follow up a little later with what we did and why as well as a followup to the rest of the craziness in the final 1.3 seconds of a very crazy game. Thanks for your input.

Don't forget to kill the timer.

I'm a bit confused here - did the ball actually go OOB, whistle, horn, or was there a live ball, horn/stop clock, 0.9 left?

We know that the tip by White occurred at 1.3 seconds.

The answers what to do depend on what the timer is confused about: Did the timer stop the clock on your signal? Did the timer stop the clock when he sounded the horn (without a signal form you)?

And the answers depend on what you observed and did: Did the officials signal to stop the clock? How much time had elapsed before you signalled for the clock to stop?

more details
 

Ball is not OOB. Whistle blows it dead on horn. The horn sounded spontaneously, so I won't kill the timer who was excellent throughout. The clock malfunctioned--it stopped through no action of timer and when we resumed, the clock wouldn't even count down and time was kept by the R.

So, Mark/Slider, the short explanation of the sitch is:

1.3 secs, inbound toss, tip at halfcourt, time starts, horn sounds and clock stops on its own, whistle, ball is inbounds with no control by either team. Clock shows 0.9 secs and both coaches are coming out to the court to figure out what in the world has happened, while the timer is waving his hands frantically proclaiming to coaches and officials "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"

Now, what would you do?

[Edited by physicsref on Feb 23rd, 2002 at 09:58 PM]

If you believed the ball was loose and the offensive team had no chance to regain in 1.3 seconds I would say the game should be over. A clock malfunction should not take away the fact that the offensive team would of never got a shot up and the clock malfunction should not penalize the defensive team for making a good deflection. Use common sense and avoid Munich 72. If you believed the offensive team could of gotten the loose ball and put up a shot in 1.3 then put .9 on the clock and go to the arrow. Please do not do a do over as this is totally unfair to the defensive team.

I too would NOT penalize the defense.

I think we "know" that the clock and horn were linked at 0.9, then you give the stop signal, one second lag comes into play, so the game is over.

BTW, ideally in this situation with so little time left, you would have counted down the last second(s) in your head or with your arm, and then called the game (no whistle until you called the game).

I agree that we should be counting, the players should keep going regardless of the horn (this has happened, sans clock stoppage, in D-I games at my school, and everyone kept going), and we can call the quarter when it is appropriate (I had to do this once this year - thankfully the shot missed!)

However, you CANNOT apply lag time in reverse. The clock does not have to go a full second from the whistle - the rule is that the clock must stop within one second. Also, there is no lag time provision for the clock stopping before the whistle!! If the clock stopped at 0.9 and you didn't have some sort of count, you have to go with the clock at 0.9 seconds.

The Crazy End to my season
 

Although this might not be the last game I work, it will be the last one at my college.

Of course, this happens during a televised game (not nationally, but I did have a problem during our ESPN game) so that commentators and idiotic fans at home can also think I screwed up.

Opening tip gets bounced around, and eventually ends up in a tie-up. Referee signals that there will be another toss, so I undo the arrow. Blue then gets the ball, so I set the arrow toward white's basket.

About two minutes into the half, blue shoots, wedgie, AP arrow - white ball. Nothing more in that half.

At halftime, I converse with the ref, we determine blue's ball, and switch the arrow.

Coming out of the half, an assistant coach for white comes over to the table and asks me "it's our ball, right?" I tell him no, it's blue's.

"But you told me it was our ball!"
"No, I didn't."

I then proceded to explain about the wedgie to the coach and the refs. Refs knew what was going on, but our coach had asked the visiting scorer, who had forgotten to record the wedgie.

Sometimes, I wonder who is stupider - coaches or cheerleaders?

Agreed, my Bad :-)

I hate lag time!!!

What we did
 

I've got a varied responses from various referees. "Do it over" was a common response, but I don't like it. That's grade school kickball not basketball. I got the let the game end response too. However, punishing the visitors for the home team's clock seemed wrong at the time.

We went with Slider's alternate recommendation: no control on the play, 0.9 secs remains in the game, alternate possession near midcourt.

The AP went to black (down by 3) who inbounded the ball and got an immediate foul--no time elapses on the clock! R goes to table and scorer says: "Look it won't start for me!" and demonstrates the uncooperative nature of our clock. R says "Fine." 0.6 left on clock and I've got the time in my head. First throw is made, intentional miss on 2nd shot, tip doesn't go. A very wild finish to the season.

Thanks for your suggestions,

Know lag time, love lag time, become one with lag time.

(It will make the ends of your quarters much smoother! :))