ncaa men's: 'absolutes' and goaltending
 

hey guys-
looking for some input. i was visiting with a fellow official in the office today and we came up with some questions that i wanted to run by a few of you to get feedback if you don't mind regarding what was discussed yesterday in our college juco conference rules meeting.

on the concept of 'absolutes' that is being pushed by the ncaa this year as seen in the instructional video with john adams:
- two hands on a ball handler is a foul
- tripping a ball handler is a foul
- was there one more?

on the subject of absolutes, they showed a play in the ncaa video where a player was breaking up the court by himself without the ball for an easy basket. the ball is thrown to him, but while the ball is in the air for the pass, he's tripped up, goes to the floor, and never ends up touching the ball and never technically becomes a 'ball handler' and the ball goes oob. is this still an 'absolute foul'?

goaltending:
does the ball have to be breaking the vertical or the horizontal plane of the ring for the new goaltending rule? in other words, can the ball be ball be all the way over to one side or the other of the backboard and touched on the way up after having touched the backboard and have goaltending? or does the ball have to be above the cylinder in the sense that if you were looking up through the cylinder from the bottom you could see the ball directly above you? i hope that makes sense.

i'd appreciate any guidance you guys can send my way. thanks in advance.

If the ball is directly above the cylinder and is touched, then it's basket interference. So it can only be goaltending if the ball is "over to one side". The ball must touch the backboard above the ring level during a try, and then be touched by a player in order to be goaltending.

The "new" goaltending rule was clarified somewhat in my meeting Saturday. We didn't discuss the over the basket/off to one side issue. But, it was made clear that the ball must be entirely above the level of the rim when it strikes the backboard for the new rule to be in effect. For me, that settled the question we discussed a few weeks back.

I believe this is an "absolute" because if the player was not tripped they will score an "easy basket". From your description, this is an obvious advantage being nullified.

-Josh

right, i agree that it has to be above the level of the rim... that's what i meant by horizontal plane of the rim. but the way the guy at our meeting explained it i, i got the impression that if you couldn't (theoretically) look up from directly under the cylinder and see the ball above the cylinder, then it wasn't goaltending. that doesn't make any sense to me, so i'm hoping i misunderstood and it only applies to balls above the horizontal plane. does anybody know for sure?

I agree that an obvious advantage is being nullified, but this situation is highly subjective relative to the other situations that are 'absolutes'. the other ones are pretty cut and dried, but this one has the huge variable of the loose ball. who's to say that he could have even gotten to the pass in the first play, say an uncatchable pass? i know, i know, it's not football, but you get my point... :D

What difference would a "loose ball" have on the call? If he was tripped, he was tripped - call the foul.

hawk, I already answered this for you. If you can look up through the cylinder and see the ball, then it's in the cylinder. If you touch a ball that's in the cylinder, it's basket interference -- NOT goaltending. In other words, what you're describing is NEVER goaltending. The new addition to the goaltending rule doesn't change that.

I'm not sure I can be any clearer than that.

Doesn't make sense to me either. Perhaps he's slightly misunderstanding this part of the rule? "The entire ball is above the level of the ring and has the possibility, while in flight, of entering the basket and is not touching the cylinder."

Perhaps he misconstrued this, believing it means the entire ball must be in the cylinder (which Scrappy rightly points out is basket interference) when in reality it really just means the entire ball must be above a geometric plane formed from the points along the top of the ring?

I'll chalk that up to the defender displacing the offense ;)

-Josh

That's what was so noteworthy about John Adams' statements. In the past there haven't been any "absolutes". He seems to be trying to introduce a few. Jeff may now find his supervisors telling him to call it differently this year than they've said to call it in the past.

NevadaRef -- please do not try to derail this thread into a you vs Rut slamming contest. Get back to discussing basketball officiating.

If I am thinking of the same play that you are describing, this was a "You make the call" play. The correct interpretations were listed in the back of the handbook and they do want a foul on this play.


No - that is already the basket interference rule (as others pointed out). The new rule allows for goaltending to be called when the ball is above the rim, touches the backboard, and is then touched by a player.

If the ball is within the cylinder, that is still basket interference. The new rule addresses the ball being above the rim, touching the backboard, and NOT within the cylinder. Under the new rule, the ball is considered on its downward flight, so if is touched it is goaltending.

Uh, Nevada, it's his site, his forum, his game. He can delete whatever he wants!!

If your post is deleted and you post a "Why was my post deleted?" or a rant about why you don't think your post should have been deleted, expect that post to also get deleted.

This isn't your blog.