Rules Question!! Please help

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

My opinion (I know, it's just that) is that the player is in control while dribbling. If he realizes, after stepping out of bounds, that the he needs to relinquish control, it's too late. And yes, I think you can tell by his actions whether the dribble became interrupted before or after he stepped OOB.

Agree....except for the "too late" part. There's no rules backing that I know of that will back up your saying that.

If he doesn't touch the ball again after stepping OOB, the dribble was either interrupted or ended. There are no other options afaik, rules-wise. And if you call it an "interrupted dribble", that means it became an interrupted dribble when it was last touched. And if the interrupted dribble started before the player stepped OOB, that means that the player wasn't a "dribbler" when he stepped OOB.....which means that... ergo, ipso facto and tierra del fuego.... R9-3-1NOTE can't apply. The same logic also applies to a dribble that has ended.

Yes, there is player control during a dribble. Rules say so. Yes, there is also no player control during an interrupted dribble. Rules say that also. What is being debated is when an "interrupted dribble" begins. Common sense tells you that an interrupted dribble has to start when it's touched last. And if the player doesn't touch the ball again after stepping OOB, you know when the last touch occurred. If it's touched last before the player stepped OOB, I can't find any rules backing anywhere to apply R9-3 because the player isn't a "dribbler".

Of course in real life, if you make this call, the ball will have bounced back up and been touched again anyway after the dribbler stepped OOB, making all of these arguments moot. It's a bang-bang play, taking less than a second probably. If you ever do run into a ballplayer though that is smart enough to walk away from the ball after stepping OOB(extremely unlikely), I'd hate to penalize that player without proper rules backing. And I still can't find anything in the rule or case book that definitively backs up your statement that the violation must be called immediately when the player steps OOB.

Sooooooo.....to sum up: