Too many players on the court

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by Coach Bill

Middle School AAU game played under NFHS rules.

After a timeout, the other team sent 6 players on the court. We brought the ball up from the backcourt to the frontcourt, when I noticed they had 6. I yelled to the ref, they have 6 on the court. The other coach heard me yelling, and yelled "So and so, get off the court!". His played stepped off the court right in front of the ref, and hustled back to the bench. I ended up getting a technical, for complaining that they didn't call a technical on them. They admitted they saw it, but ignored it.

I'm not complaining about my 'T' (I deserved it). But, are refs reluctant to call this 'T', because perhaps it's their fault for not counting and signaling?

Unfortunately, there were many mistakes made on this one.

Mistake #1: Coach failed to send only 5 players to the court.

Mistake #2: the officials either:

• didn't use the mechanic to ensure only 5 players per team are on the court
• ignored the illegal act
• followed the mechanic and missed the 6th player

While it is the coach's ultimate responsibility for fielding the correct number of players, the officials do have mechanics to catch cases where more than or less than 5 players are on the court from one team.

Mistake #3: The officials also should have assessed a technical foul against the team that had 6 players.

Mistake #4: I also believe that they should not have issued a technical foul against you for your informing the officials of your opponents having 6 players, unless you did so in an unsporting manner.

All in all, it sounds like 4 large mistakes were made.