Coach drags out the rule book

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by barkeep49

I'm currently working on becoming an official (I've finished the test, but haven't sent it in yet since I want to double check my answers). I have previously coached travel youth basketball, 4th and 5th grade. So we're not talking varsity here, though many of the refs we get also do varsity. In particular the home court refs my park district gets are very good. Last year, between my two teams (from two different PDs), the other team got whistled for 5 technicals (which I thought was a lot). In one of those cases the player who I wanted to shoot the FT was already on the court. In the other 4, as luck would have it, he was not. Only one time was I allowed to insert my preferred player. I never argued the decision in anyway (after all, they've just given some other guy a T and I'm the good guy at this point ), but I did grow frustrated that 60% of the time I was not able to have my preferred player shooting FTs after a T. Was the best thing there for me to just keep my mouth shut, as I did? Or would there have been a way for me to get the rule enforced correctly?

Yes, you are allowed to have whomever you wish shoot the FTs for the technical foul issued to the opposing team.

It makes no sense from an officiating standpoint to only allow once out of 4 times a "preferred player to shot the FTs".

The officials either are certain they think they know the rule, or they are not certain that they know the rule. If they are certain that they think they know the rule, then they should have allowed all or none "preferred players" to shoot the Ts. If they know they don't know the rule, then they should have allowed the preferred player 2 times, because then they are incorrect at most 2 times, but are also correct 2 times.

Either way, the officials weren't consistent in this game, and that frustrates coaches. Right, barkeep49?