I am a FIBA ref and we are having a high school tournemt here in The Bahamas were they want ot use NF rules. Can some exlain to me the old LOSA rule and why it was abolished? I am clear on the 5- second closely guarded, but someone tried to call 5 seconds because A1 was holding the ball near the centreline and no defender had come up on him. any help?

Chris
The Bahamas

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Chris don't know why they took it out but there is no call for holding the ball above where the 28 ft line would be while not closly guarded(most high school courts have taken that line out).

Mike

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Geneva">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by sip on 02-25-2000 01:11 AM
Can some exlain to me the old LOSA rule and why it was abolished? I am clear on the 5- second closely guarded, but someone tried to call 5 seconds because A1 was holding the ball near the centreline and no defender had come up on him. any help?

Chris
The Bahamas
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Ooh, such nostalgia! The old lack-of-sufficient-action (LOSA) rule had a lot of different aspects and was, in my opinion, a real mess to deal with for many officials. It was very confusing to many guys trying to figure out who was responsible for "forcing" the action, and what procedures to use. In general, the team behind was responsible to force the action, which meant causing the ball to proceed beyond the hash mark if they were on offense or coming out to guard the ball if on defense. If they refused to do so, the ref would stick out a fisted arm in the direction of the team that had to force the action (to let them know he was counting now) and count 5 seconds. If nothing happened, he'd have to step a little farther out onto the court toward that team and yell, "White (or whatever), PLAY BALL!" After that, if they didn't comply, it would be a technical. That's just a simple explanation of what I remember (I'm really not that old--just 42). You can imagine all the variations (such as, you had to have TWO guys playing defense closely, not just on the ball) needing to be properly enforced. The "powers that be" probably finally realized it wasn't worth the hassles, so they eliminated the rule. That was somewhere around 15-17 years ago, I'd guess.

[This message has been edited by Todd VandenAkker (edited February 25, 2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Geneva">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Todd VandenAkker on 02-25-2000 09:06 AMThat was somewhere around 15-17 years ago, I'd guess.
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Actually, I think it was around ten years ago...

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Brian Johnson

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Geneva">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Todd VandenAkker on 02-25-2000 09:06 AM
The "powers that be" probably finally realized it wasn't worth the hassles, so they eliminated the rule. That was somewhere around 15-17 years ago, I'd guess.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was 1991 or 1992, I'm pretty sure. I was calling intramural ball using NF rules, and they supplied us with rulebooks. I know the LOSA rule was in my first book (90-91), so it must have been in one of the subsequent books.

Also, as I recall, they took out the LOSA rule about the time they decided they didn't want shot clocks in the HS game. The logic, as it was explained in the rulebook commentary, was that it was up to the coach to determine his team's tempo, not the rulebooks.

CFred -

NY obviously wanted the 35 second shot clock in HS cause they use it. And it has worked very well. Not many shot clock violations in the games I've done and it prevents a team from sitting on a lead except for last minute when clock is turned off.