Inadvertent Whistle

[Boni]

Question from former coach, now a fan.

Team A is behind and scores a basket. Coach for A requests a time out, but team B quickly inbounds ball and player on B has dribbled about 2 times when referee blows whistle.

Ref says inadvertent whistle, should not have granted the time out, spot throw in.

At this time coach requests the time-out again since it was a dead ball and the ref says we are putting the ball into play, no time out.

I enjoy talking rules with refs in a nice way. So I go up after the game and ask him about the situation. When coaching I kept up on the rules and read the rule book quite often.

I asked that since he stopped play for the inadvertent whistle, what was the reason for not granting the time out at that point. He said it would put Team B at a disadvantage to which I said the disadvantage had already occurred due to the inadvertent whistle, I think at that point you should have granted the time out. At that point he was no longer interested in talking civil and told me to either be a fan or a ref, not both. Honestly, I was not yelling, complaining, just discussing, so not sure why the attitude.


So what is the proper management of this situation

[just another ref]

Once he blows the whistle to grant the timeout, the team gets the timeout, whether it was properly granted or not. Also, whether the IW was because of the timeout request or any other reason, once the ball is dead there is certainly no reason not to grant the request.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by Boni

Question from former coach, now a fan.

Team A is behind and scores a basket. Coach for A requests a time out, but team B quickly inbounds ball and player on B has dribbled about 2 times when referee blows whistle.

Ref says inadvertent whistle, should not have granted the time out, spot throw in.

At this time coach requests the time-out again since it was a dead ball and the ref says we are putting the ball into play, no time out.

I enjoy talking rules with refs in a nice way. So I go up after the game and ask him about the situation. When coaching I kept up on the rules and read the rule book quite often.

I asked that since he stopped play for the inadvertent whistle, what was the reason for not granting the time out at that point. He said it would put Team B at a disadvantage to which I said the disadvantage had already occurred due to the inadvertent whistle, I think at that point you should have granted the time out. At that point he was no longer interested in talking civil and told me to either be a fan or a ref, not both. Honestly, I was not yelling, complaining, just discussing, so not sure why the attitude.


So what is the proper management of this situation

He wasn't civil because very few people like to have their mistakes pointed out. The official was wrong and you were right. It's that simple.

[Boni]

You are right on the "pointing out mistakes" thing.

I guess I always welcomed questions about my coaching, even from parents. Other points of view are good and I never felt so insecure about my coaching that I would not discuss my actions. Sometimes parents have good points. How could I possibly believe that I never made a mistake coaching. So I expect others to feel the same which probably gets me into trouble, expecially with my wife.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by Boni

So what is the proper management of this situation

The question has been correclty answered for FED rules. Note that under NCAA rules, the official was correct. And, since your original post didn't specify, ....

Note also that if every "fan" was reasonable, that more questions would be answered. But, since most fans aren't reasonable (or become unreasonable after starting out polite), officials are generally conditioned to assume the worst.

[Boni]

Bob, totally agree about fans. The louder they are, the less they know about the rules.

This was a middle school game that my daughter was playing in, so Fed rules would apply in Indiana.

I coached middle school ball for 15 years, had the same pool of refs for most of that. I would go seasons without questioning a call from these guys. I realized hundreds of judgements were going on at once on every play.

So when I did question a call, because I wasn't always on them, they always came over and really discussed the play with me, let me make my point, and often times agreed with me, too late of course.

The other thing that really helped me were 2 phrases, Legal Guarding Position and Advantage / Disadvantage. Usually when I discussed calls with that terminology, the ref knew I knew what I was talking about. As opposed to the screamer at the other bench calling for an "over the back".

[refnrev]

No doubt that if this was FED rules he kicked it. Also, FWIT, many guys hate being stopped after a game because you often end up in no win situations. I once had a doc come up and say, "Excuse me sir, I'm a doctor and I need to talk to you." I wasn't sick and he didn't need to talk to me. He was just ticked off about a call I made against his kid on Sr. Night." Where was the AD when I needed him?

[Mark Padgett]

Originally Posted by refnrev

I once had a doc come up and say, "Excuse me sir, I'm a doctor and I need to talk to you." I wasn't sick and he didn't need to talk to me. He was just ticked off about a call I made against his kid on Sr. Night."

"Sir - if your knowledge of medicine is as poor as your knowledge of basketball rules, I'll call my insurance company and have them take you off their provider list - oh, and I hope for your sake that your malpractice insurance is paid up."