Game Over and Correctable Error?

[jgg]

The following situation happened in an AAU tournament game today. I've read the rule book on this and I am still a little confused as to whether the rules were correctly applied. Your educated interpretations would be much appreciated.

The score is 48-46 with 8 seconds left. A player on the losing team drives to the basket and a shooting foul is called. A technical foul is also immediately assessed on the player who committed the foul for something said to the official after the foul was called.

One second is left on the clock.

4 free throws are shot, of which 3 are made giving the team that was losing a 49-48 lead. The ball is inbounded on the technical and the game ends with the team getting a 1 point come from behind win as a result.

The teams shake hands, gather their gear and leave the court.

The officials go to their between games rest area which is courtside behind the scorer's table. The losing coach is in their ear griping about the assessment of the game ending technical.

At some point during his discussion with them, someone discovers that the wrong player shot the free throws for the foul. That is, the player who was fouled did not shoot, another player who was chosen to shoot the technical free throws ended up shooting all 4 by mistake.

After much heated discussion, it is ruled a correctable error. The players are brought back onto the floor.

It is also ruled that all 4 free throws had to be reshot and the last second of the game replayed.

On the replay, only 1 of the 4 free throws was made. A desperation shot on the last second play fell short and the team that initially won the game, was now the loser.

The losing team argued that the rules were applied incorrectly twice.

First, that the error was no longer correctable since the game was over, players had shaken hands and left the court, and technically the officials had left the court also since they were in their between games rest area. The teams playing in the next game were already warming up.

Second, that the only thing that should have been correctable was having the correct player re-shoot the free throws for the foul. They argued that points scored after the recognition of the error should have counted. In that case, the second pair of made free throws should have counted as the technical free throws. If this had been the case, then the score would have been tied at 48-48 and they would be shooting to make 1 of 2 for the win.

Did their argument have merit or were the rules applied correctly?

Thanks,

gg