A few questions...

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by IHSAref

I did a JH boys game last night and had some things come up that I was unsure of how to handle. This is only my second year so I am sorry if these seem basic.

a) Team A makes a basket and as the ball is going through the hoop A head coach is calling a timeout. I did not hear him clearly until B had inbounded the ball. I did NOT give him the timeout but after the game I was wondering if I should have since the request came before the ball was live. Did I handle this correctly?

b) Team B is inbounded the ball underneath after a team A basket, and B1 gets it and he does travel, it was a close call, and after replaying it my head he did travel, meanwhile coach A (this happened right in front of his bench) was screaming TRAVEL TRAVEL, I did not call the travel becasue I did not want people to think that the head coach was influencing my call. Was this the right thing to do?
Thanks a lot for your help!

IHSAref

Regarding a), if you remember, this is one of those Points of Emphasis from the IHSA rules meeting. An official should be sure a team is making a proper TO request, iow, that it is the head coach or player making the request if the ball is dead, or, if the ball is live, that the requesting team has both team and player-control as well. Coaches were reminded that our focus should be on the game, not necessarily paying attention to them, so we may occasionally miss proper requests due to our attention being focused on the floor. So, in your case, if you're not sure the head coach was making the request at the proper time, you were right in not granting it. That said, as you gain more experience you will learn to be more aware of situations where a coach may be ready to ask for a TO - did the other team just go on 10-point run, for example, or was it a close, end-of-game situation?

In b), I know it always rubs me the wrong way to make a call while a coach is asking for it. But, if it's the right call, then it's the call to make, period. As for the coach "yelling" for the travel, remember you could make 2 calls here - travel, followed by a T.