Dribbling situations

[jdmara]

Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

Josh:

Sit. 1: Legal.


Sit. 2:

First, base upon your description of the play, I a, going to assume that Aw ended his dribble by touching the ball with both ends and then fumbled or muffed the ball. At this point, there is team control by Team A but not player control by any player on Team A. A2 can recover the ball, but cannot dribble the ball if no other player touches the ball before A2 regains player control of the ball.

Second, based upon your description of the play I would not rule an illegal dribble by A2. Why? A player must have established player control before said player can start to dribble the ball. One way, for a player who does not have control of the ball, to establish player control of the ball is to catch the ball. Your own description states the A2 slapped the ball in an effort to catch the ball; that should tell you that A2 did not have control of the ball and his slapping of the ball was not the start of a new dribble but an effort to recover the ball.

MTD, Sr.

Exactly my opinion of the rulings. You couldn't have said it better.

Sit 1 I've called (or have not called) this several times this season and the coaches are always going ballistic at my explanation.

Sit 2 is something that has happened multiple times this past week. I haven't called this an illegal dribble but my partner(s) believe it is.

-Josh