In homage to Tony: there are four required elements to a backcourt violation. If any one of the four is missing, it is NOT a violation.

• There must be team control.
• The ball must have front court status.
• The ball must have been last touched by the team in control before going to backcourt.
• The ball must be first touched by the team in control after having gone to backcourt.

In the OP, there is no team control. Tapping is not controlling. Holding or dribbling is controlling. If you judge that he actually caught the ball then threw it, by all means count that as team control. In my game, there is going to have to be a clear catch, obvious control, and then a separate throwing motion. "Prolonged contact" doesn't do it for me in basketball. ;)

I had a similar thing happen to me tonight. Throw-in in the frontcourt. A1 throws it towards A2, it's a high pass. Deflects off of A2's hand and goes about two feet into the backcourt. A2 goes and retrieves it and dribbles into the frontcourt. I almost hit the whistle before I realized that it wasn't a violation.

As for the OP, that isn't a violation if it happened the way it's described.

So this isn't tapping. It's a pass back to the teammate who inbounded the ball. How can a player pass the ball without having control of it?

I agree with Bob Jenkins's ruling: if it's a pass, this is a violation; if it's a fumble, play on.

Because the rules don't require control to pass the ball. The ball may be passed by batting it. Says so right there in 4-31.

Do you believe that batting the ball constitutes player control?

Depends how long the hand is on the ball. If it's definitely a swing the arm, ball bounces off the hand bat, I'm with you. If the ball comes to rest in the hand for even a fraction of a second, I'll call this a violation every time.

I'm pretty sure Bob would point out that you cannot have a fumble without having first had player control, thus team control, thus a violation. ;)

OTOH, batting the ball does not involve player control, thus no team control, thus no violation.

That's true. Where's JR when we need him? ;)

As I implied in an earlier post, if the ball comes to rest in the hand at all, it's a hold, not a bat. This still is consistent with the definition of player control requiring a player to be either holding or dribbling a live ball inbounds. Remember, it is possible for a player to "bat" the ball in a specific direction without having it come to rest in his hand. This is not a hold and does not constitute player control.

Heluva Good Official ...
 

He says that he lives in Hell. Anybody got any contacts there? Also, I heard a rumor that he was sighted on the Baseball Forum recently.

No, but I'm going there for an extended stay.

You're headed down this way Mick? You can do my season opener 12-2!!

Best offer I've had in a month !:)