Clock does not start

[CoachJW]

Team A is losing by three points with 0:08 left in the game. A1 is shooting two free throws and misses the first. He shoots the second free throw and misses, but it is rebounded by A2 who shoots and makes a layup. B1 picks up the ball and takes it out of bounds. As he is looking for a player to pass the ball in to, the whistle blows. The official has realized that the clock never started. It still reads 0:08. The officials go over to the table and tell them to put 0:06 on the clock, then they hand the ball to B1 for a throw-in. The clock will be started, of course, when B1's inbound pass is caught inbounds.

I will admit bias on this one because I was the coach of Team B. We had an opportunity to use as much as four seconds just waiting to throw the ball inbounds, plus another second or two after the ball went through the hoop but was not yet at our disposal (thus the 5-second count would not have started yet). It was a crazy overtime game in a loud gym, and yelling my argument across the court was not going to do any good. But later I was thinking of two questions:

1) Wouldn't it make sense for the officials to give B1 the ball for the throw-in after the re-setting of the clock and start the clock while he was still out of bounds? This would seem to be the most accurate way to correct the table's error. I realize that this is never going to happen, but it crossed my mind. The way in which the situation was administered as described above gave great benefit to the home (trailing team)

2) When the officials met with the table to set the clock from :08 to :06, are they allowed to use their 5-count plus a reasonable guess of other timeas an official measurement of the time that should have elapsed? For example, if the official had reached a count of two when the whistle was blown, could he have said, "well, I got to two on my count, and there was at least one second from the time the rebounder touched it until it went through the net and B1 took it out of bounds.?"

[just another ref]

1. Would it make sense? yes Is there any rule support for handling it this way? no

2. No reasonable guesses. No at least. The only way adjustments can be made are with definite knowledge of the time involved. The main example of definite knowledge is an official's count.

BUT, in this situation, it was not absolutely necessary for play to be stopped at all. Officials should be aware when the clock does not start in this situation and count to 8 and say "BALL GAME!"

[Nevadaref]

We just discussed a very similar situation.

5.10.1 Sit E

[CMHCoachNRef]

Originally Posted by CoachJW

Team A is losing by three points with 0:08 left in the game. A1 is shooting two free throws and misses the first. He shoots the second free throw and misses, but it is rebounded by A2 who shoots and makes a layup. B1 picks up the ball and takes it out of bounds. As he is looking for a player to pass the ball in to, the whistle blows. The official has realized that the clock never started. It still reads 0:08. The officials go over to the table and tell them to put 0:06 on the clock, then they hand the ball to B1 for a throw-in. The clock will be started, of course, when B1's inbound pass is caught inbounds.

I will admit bias on this one because I was the coach of Team B. We had an opportunity to use as much as four seconds just waiting to throw the ball inbounds, plus another second or two after the ball went through the hoop but was not yet at our disposal (thus the 5-second count would not have started yet). It was a crazy overtime game in a loud gym, and yelling my argument across the court was not going to do any good. But later I was thinking of two questions:

1) Wouldn't it make sense for the officials to give B1 the ball for the throw-in after the re-setting of the clock and start the clock while he was still out of bounds? This would seem to be the most accurate way to correct the table's error. I realize that this is never going to happen, but it crossed my mind. The way in which the situation was administered as described above gave great benefit to the home (trailing team)

2) When the officials met with the table to set the clock from :08 to :06, are they allowed to use their 5-count plus a reasonable guess of other timeas an official measurement of the time that should have elapsed? For example, if the official had reached a count of two when the whistle was blown, could he have said, "well, I got to two on my count, and there was at least one second from the time the rebounder touched it until it went through the net and B1 took it out of bounds.?"

1. No rule to support starting the clock before the ball is touched in bounds in this situation.

2. A "reasonable guess" cannot be used in this (or other) case(s). The official can use any or all counts when setting the clock. I would likely have continued counting in this case (as suggested by JAR) the final eight seconds.

If I have seen suspicious behavior by the timer during the game (either intentional or just inexperience), I will frequently keep internal counts during critical times during the game.

[riverfalls57]

Had a VB game yesterday, tie game, 11 seconds left, HT has two FT's, TO called before the FT's. Got together with my partner ( 2-man game) and told him that no matter what happened with the FT's that I would start a visible count when it was time to start the clock just so that we were covered. We had already pregamed this so it was no problem. HT made both FT's and the VT was able to get a shot off (which missed) before the horn sounded. No problems with the clock but I was glad that we had it covered.

[BillyMac]

I had one of those very, very rare, but it does occasionally happen, plays yesterday. Ball goes out of bounds as I'm mentally counting down the last five seconds of a blowout game. As the ball hits out of bounds, I blow my whistle, fully expecting to hear the horn go off simultaneously with my whistle. It doesn't, so I look up to see 0:00 on the clock. I go over to the timekeeper, and ask the question that all of us, who have officiated longer than some of our partners have been alive, have learned to ask, "Is the automatic horn on?". Timekeeper replies yes, so we go back and have a throwin, that is immediately followed by the horn. We often talk about plays on this Forum that only happen "once in a million games", and some officials don't see any practical merit to these "theoretical" discussions, but things that happen "once in a million games", do happen once in a million games, and must be dealt with, by the correct rule.