Book Error - Personal Foul Not Attributed to a Player
 

Scorer miss-hears what number the calling official reports the personal foul is on, but instead of informing the official(s) of this immediately, lets the ball become live and play continue for 5 minutes, until the next foul is called and reported. Both books have recorded a team foul with no jersey number. Procedure/ruling?

A scorekeeping mistake can be corrected at any time until the final score is approved. If the official knows who the foul was on, record the information and move on. If nobody can come up with the number, then I think you're in 2-3 land. In which case I'd probably assign it to the player on the floor who has the fewest fouls.

Or you may have to go with just a team foul and no individual player foul.

Then you would have a problem that the book would not balance out. When I kept score for the girls team back when I was the boys coach at a small school, that's how I made sure I wasn't missing any fouls.

But if you know why it doesn't balance, that's as good as balancing the book.

I agree with Nevada -- get the part you know (the team has a foul) and admonish the scorekeeper to get clarification right away next time.

You make an annotation in the book that there is an unassigned personal foul.

When we give a team technical foul, it's not assigned to anyone, so that also makes the book not balance out. If you're a very conscientious scorer and need it to "balance", then make a notation, as BNR mentioned.

I'm in the "give-it-to-the-team" camp here. No need to compound the error by giving it to a random player.

Actually, there are spaces in the book for notating team technicals. I have a friend who works the table for a local college, and he says he cannot finish a night of bookkeeping without it balancing, otherwise the conference sends back the copy for accuracy or an explanation.

I agree with everyone, the book person should have it right the first time, and immediately get the number than to wait. In this situation, a notation could be made. Don't be surprised if you're contacted by a conference or the state association (in Iowa, we're required to sign our names in the book and we can get contacted later about problems like this).

That's actually very interesting. I've never noticed such a space. Thank you for mentioning it. I'm gonna have to check it out more closely tonight at my game. :)

This situation should be talked about during EVERY pre-game. The R on any game should also address this issue with the table crew before the game, for EVERY game.

Something along the lines of, "Hi. My name is John Doe, and our crew will be working with you tonight. Just a couple points . . . One, as you know, you are a member of the officiating crew and we are going to rely on you to keep everything correct on the clock and in the book (fouls, players, time, score, alt. poss. arrow, etc.). If you don't get the information we are reporting, please call us over immediately, do not wait. We want to get it right the first time. So, if you don't get the number, team, etc., please let us know before we walk away. Second . . . [put in anything else you may want to discuss.]"

JMO, but this situation should never happen in any game. (The unfortunate truth though, is that it does, so prepare for it.)

Thank you, everyone, for your replies.

The crew in question stayed with the team foul in the book, and didn't assign it to any one player (they couldn't remember).