Spot Throw-in: Fed vs. NCAA

[jbduke]

I don't want this to be perceived as Terping, i.e. the practice well-practiced by many Maryland fans of blaming the officials every time they lose a game, especially to Duke. That said, I have a question regarding the game last night. With about 15 seconds to go in the IU/Duke game, IU had a spot throw-in. The thrower shuffled quite a bit on the sideline before inbounding the ball. If the college rule is what the Fed rule used to be, i.e. a travelling violation is possible, then the T really blew that one. If not, if the rules are the same for both orgs, then it's a good play, as I don't think he violated the three-foot box.

As an aside, since I don't have my rule-book handy right now, could somebody refresh me on the Fed three-foot box? Is it 1.5 feet on each side, or is it three feet in one direction; i.e. if a player were to move two feet to his left, would he then be allowed to move back up to five feet to his right?

jb

[mick]

Originally posted by jbduke
As an aside, since I don't have my rule-book handy right now, could somebody refresh me on the Fed three-foot box? Is it 1.5 feet on each side, or is it three feet in one direction; i.e. if a player were to move two feet to his left, would he then be allowed to move back up to five feet to his right?

jb,
The spot is the same in Fed and NCAA.
It is three feet wide.
Exactly where the edges are is entirely up to your judgement.
mick

[Mark Padgett]

Originally posted by jbduke
The thrower shuffled quite a bit on the sideline before inbounding the ball. If the college rule is what the Fed rule used to be, i.e. a travelling violation is possible, then the T really blew that one.
jb

I don't know what you mean by "what the Fed rule used to be". The current NF rule (and it's been this way since I can remember) is that if the inbounder (I refuse to use the NF designation "thrower-in" - it makes me want to "thrower-up") moves off the spot, it's an inbound violation. It's never a "travel", despite the incorrect mechanic used for this by some officials.

[Bart Tyson]

Originally posted by jbduke


Is it 1.5 feet on each side, or is it three feet in one direction; i.e. if a player were to move two feet to his left, would he then be allowed to move back up to five feet to his right?

jb [/B]

Actually there are no limitations on how far a player can stritch to his right or left. The rule only requires at least one foot on or above the 3' wide area. As an example the player could use as much as 9' feet (i.e. 3' to the right and 3' to the left) as long as at least one foot never leaves the 3' area.

[BktBallRef]

I agree with Mark and Bart. Traveling is not possible and both feet must leave the spot for a violation to be called.

BTW, jbduke, I was extremely disappointed in the way the Duke players and coaches acted after the game was over. Duke had this game won with 3 minutes to play and gave it away. They lost the game, not the officials. I can hardly wait to see Coach K do another ACC sportsmanship spot.

[Mark Dexter]

Originally posted by Bart Tyson

Actually there are no limitations on how far a player can stritch to his right or left. The rule only requires at least one foot on or above the 3' wide area. As an example the player could use as much as 9' feet (i.e. 3' to the right and 3' to the left) as long as at least one foot never leaves the 3' area.

Not quite - the whole "lane" is three feet wide - not three feet in each direction from the center (which would be six feet wide).

[Slider]

Originally posted by BktBallRef
I agree with Mark and Bart. Traveling is not possible and both feet must leave the spot for a violation to be called.

BTW, jbduke, I was extremely disappointed in the way the Duke players and coaches acted after the game was over. Duke had this game won with 3 minutes to play and gave it away. They lost the game, not the officials. I can hardly wait to see Coach K do another ACC sportsmanship spot.

From what I saw, K went to restrain his player, and took a quick/minor verbal shot at the refs; I think his demeanor was "acceptable" after such a loss.

[Bart Tyson]

Originally posted by Mark Dexter

Not quite - the whole "lane" is three feet wide - not three feet in each direction from the center (which would be six feet wide).

You must be misunderstanding me. The lane is 3'. So, I have the ball. I move my right foot to the left edge of the 3' lane(still in the lane) and my left foot to the left, out of the lane, as far as i can while keeping my right foot on the edge of the lane. Now, lets say my left foot is 3'(could be more than 3') to the left, outside of the lane.
I have now used 6' of area. Now, repeat this same move to the right. I would be 3' to the right edge of the lane. Hence a total of 9'. I did this all within 5 seconds.

[jbduke]

BKBRef,

I'm not going to let you, or any other Carolina or Maryland fan bait me into blaming the game on the refs. Indiana took the game from Duke, and they were very deserving of that victory.

That said, I will respond to your 'extreme disappointment' in Duke's players and coaches. As for the coaches, i don't know what the hell you're talking about. Matt Christensen definitely stepped out of line by yelling at Benedict as he walked past the end of the Duke bench toward the locker room. Coach K noticed what was going on, and walked down to restrain Matt and tell him to calm down.

As for Christensen, I will not defend his actions. What I will do is try to step into his shoes for a moment, and ask you to do the same. He watches Chris Duhon get whistled on what was obviously a guess with 11 seconds left. I know it was a guess because the replay clearly showed a clean rip of the ball. Then he watches Boozer get fouled at the end, with no call. How do I know boozer was fouled when replays were inconclusive? Because in the post-game press conference, Jarred Jeffries said, "I grabbed him and got a little piece of the ball."

Duke lost the game. Indiana took it from them. Whatever phrase you want to use. The point is that somebody who's given a tremendous amount to the program was very hurt and disappointed. Certainly, he could have channeled his emotions in a much better way. But I, for one, would appreciate it if you would come down off your moral highhorse, allow some humanity to factor into your analysis and righteous indignation regarding this event, and cut the kid some friggin slack.

Furthermore, of all of the fan bases in college basketball, I would expect Carolina fans to be the last to comment negatively on the behavior of any other team's bench players. Carolina's cheerleaders, er, bench warmers, have been the laughing stock of the ACC for as long as I've been watching college basketball, until this season of course, during which there was very little worthy of cheering about. Sleep safely in your glass house.

I hope your criticisms of our program make you feel better about the failures of your own. And if you're planning to respond to that line by ripping off a list of all of Carolina's great accomplishments over the last 35 years just for my benefit, don't bother. I'm well aware, as that's all most of your fans have had to talk and write about this year.

jb

[Jurassic Referee]

Let's see now,Dukester......
1)You're not going to blame the refs?You do,however,just have to mention a foul on Duke with 11 seconds to go that that was "a guess".Then you have to tell us all about the refs not calling the obvious foul on Boozer at the end.You certainly did a fine job of not blaming the refs!
2)You are not going to defend Christensen's actions?Read your post again.You spend two full paragraphs defending his actions.They were indefensible and unsporsmanlike,whether you like it or not!
3)Then we get the old "well,North Carolina's(or insert any team that you like)fans are worse than OUR fans".

I think that you need to learn how to differentiate between being an official and being a fan.Btw,I'm not a fan of any ACC school-I could care less.I am an official.I do get sick of obvious fans like you whining and crapping on the officials when their team loses.

[jbduke]

Jurassic Referee,

What I did in my post (which I read SEVERAL times before submitting it), was look at the whole situation, and not simply nail a college kid to a wall by looking at his reaction in a vaccuum. I prefaced my comments by saying that Christensen was way out of line. What I wanted to do was try to understand his reaction. I think that the events at the end of the game go a long way toward achieving that end.

Let me add a couple of points as a fan that I did not include in my first post. Duke shot 10-19 from the free throw line, and was out-rebounded by about 20 in the game. They did not display much if any intensity in the second half against a team that was ready to beat the world if they needed to. Given these facts, how could any reasonable person argue that Duke should have won the game, under any circumstances?

Indiana is no less deserving of that win than they would have been if the calls Christensen was upset about had gone the other way. It's interesting to me, though, that in attempting to explain why christensen acted as he did, that you think I was defending him, per se. Well, yes, Alex, I'll take semantics for $1000. I was 'defending' him to the extent that I don't think that a college kid in that situation should have his character attacked because of one mistake. If you think that I was 'excusing' his actions, then you're wrong. There is no excuse. It seems to me that what's bugging you is that deep down you have some sympathy, and maybe empathy for the kid. I noticed that you didn't take issue with my assessments of the plays brought up, you were just affronted by the idea that I would bring them up int he first place. For anyone, duke supporter or not, to have those feelings does not make one a whiner, it does not mean one is 'blaming the refs' for the loss. It means one is a thinking, feeling individual. If these things make me a whiny fan, or a bad official, I'll be able to sleep soundly with that.

You know what I get 'sick of'? Officials like you who are stuck in this twilight zone where other officials never make mistakes, and where those who happen to note those mistakes are whiny fans, or officials who can't separate being a fan and being an official. Maybe you're so perfect that you've never kicked a call that you felt affected the outcome of a game. I am not in that boat. I recognize my fallability, and, though i try not to dwell on it, it certainly bothers me when I miss an important call. And I'm not going to get my feelings hurt if another official thinks I missed an important call; nor do I think that a colleague expressing such an opinion constitutes me getting 'crapped on.' It's all in the way that such a thing is expressed, and I think that it can be done constructively. Your comments imply to me a fundamental disagreement with this idea.

So yes, I, an official and a good one, think that that crew missed a couple of important calls down the stretch. However, I am well-aware of the tremendous ability of these men to make it as far as they have in their careers, and that game has not diminished my respect for them as officials one iota. And I'd be willing to bet that if any of these guys read my comments, they would not feel that they'd been 'crapped on.' They wouldn't have made it as far as they have if their skins were that thin.

I guess that I'm just glad that you and people that share your feelings on this and similar issues are not big-time supervisors, because if you were, nobody would ever get any better, because they'd always be thinking that they'd called the perfect game.

As far as your as your assertions that I trotted out the standard, "our fans are better than your fans," that's just a blatant twisting of words. I didn't say that Duke's fans are as a rule better than UNC's. What I did was inform BKBRef that a Carolina fan complaining about Duke bench decorum was equivalent to a U of Cincinnati fan giving grief to a fan of any school because one of that school's players had had a run-in with the law. But since you're 'not an ACC fan,' and 'could care less,' oh, never mind.

[Jurassic Referee]

Dukie,let me get this straight!
1)the T REALLY BLEW a "travel" violation on IU with 15 seconds to go.
2)Chris Duhon get's whistled on an OBVIOUS GUESS with 11 seconds left.
3)Boozer GET'S FOULED at the end with NO call.
Note--these are all points that you made in the posts above.Nosiree,Dukie,I think that is representative of a fan's whining-not an officials's mentality.
I think we can now safely change "Terping" to "Duking".

[jbduke]

Jurassic Referee,

This is my last forray into this particular battle.

Your ad hominem attacks have gotten ridiculous. You've totally mischaracterized me and my arguments by taking statements totally out of context. You have repeatedly refused to respond to overarching ideas and responses to your attacks, instead choosing to highlight statements that, when taken in isolation, you find offensive. (For the record, if I culled through my own posts, I'm sure that i could take out particular sentences which, devoid of context, I would find offensive as well.) This tactic doesn't make you the voice of reason, it makes you a rhetorical charlatan.

Check the ENTIRE first post. I started this thread with a request for an NCAA rule. I was obviously unclear on the rule. Although it was implied already, I made the mistake of making explicit the idea that if the old rule applied, then a call had been missed, blown, kicked, whatever. I made no claim one way or another, since I did not know for sure what the rule is for NCAA. I didn't need to make that addendum. I didn't think, however, that someone would later take the sentence out of context to attack me. Clearly, that presumption proved naive. My initial leaning on what the rule is was confirmed when people responded that the rules are the same for Fed and NCAA: clearly no violation on the throw-in.

As for my general attitude, if after reading my last post, you still truly believe me to be a whiner, you're certainly entitled to the calculus that has led you to that point. I'm just glad I use a vastly different one when analyzing events and ideas in attempting to reach conclusions.

Make sure to keep your eyes closed so you don't get sand in them.

[Bart Tyson]

jbduke, I have to admit this is giving me some laughs. . Now, you sound as if you are a little upset. Just because BktBallRef had an opinion about the actions of Duke? All he said was he was disappointed. A lot of us were disappointed. However, I don't think we are prepared to demand lashes with the whip. Now, if i am mistaken about you being upset then just disregard this post.

[mick]

jb,
I'm not sure what you said, but with all those syallables, I gotta believe what you said.

JR,
That was impressive, yo?

mick