OLD Stalling Rule

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by br1975

Can anyone help me recall how, before the shot clock era, stalling was prevented? I seem to recall some sort of penetration requirement and did hashmarks on the sidelines play a part in this rule?

There's been several. I think that the one that you're referring to went like this:

- there was a 3-foot line on both sides of the court 28 feet up from the each endline.
- the area from the endline to the 28' mark was called the forecourt; from the 28' line to the center line was called the mid-court.
- If a team was behind in the score, they were responsible for the "action". If the teams were tied, the defense was the team responsible for the action.
- if the offense was responsible for action, they could only hold the ball for 10 seconds at a time in the mid-court area. At that time, the lead official was supposed to come out, point at the offense and holler "play ball". From then on, the offense had 5 seconds to move the ball into the forecourt. If they didn't, it was a team technical foul. Once they did move the ball into the forecourt, they could again move the ball back into the mid-court...but as soon as they moved back into the mid-court, a new 5-second count was again started. Iirc, the first warning(play ball) was good for the whole game.
- if the defense was reponsible for action, as soon as the offense held the ball in the mid-court area for 10 seconds, the lead would again go through the "play ball" routine. At this time though, the defense had to send defender(s) into the mid-court area within 5 seconds or the defense was charged with a team technical foul. If there was more than 1 offensive player in the mid-court area, the defense had to send a minimum of 2 players into that area. Defensive players had to be actively guarding too. That's where the 6-foot closely guarded rule came in. And again, if the ball swung into the forecourt and then back into the mid-court, the defense had to send defenders back into the mid-court area within 5 seconds again.

It was a very convoluted rule that really didn't work worth a damn. The FED got rid of it quickly.

That's how I remember it anyway. There were other versions before and after that.