Is it right to guess?
 

Last night, VB, 2 man. I am trail and there is a loose ball with about 4 guys fighting for it in front of the lead. Ball goes shooting out and into the back court and recovered by the team that was on offense. I have no idea who passed it there.

My thought was I'm going to call it a backcourt violation. If I'm wrong, my partner and I can get together and we can rule an IW and get it back in play.

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

On this one, I'd let it go unless you're certain of two things.

1. Defense never gained control, even momentarily.
2. The offense was the last to touch it.

If there's any doubt on either of these, I'm letting it go.

I think I'd probably let this go unless I know who touched it last.

You never guess. Never. If you didn't see who touched it last in the frontcourt then it is not a backcourt violation. You hurt yourself, your partner and all officials if you guess because it calls into question every call you make.

Under your scenario, what do you tell the coach who says, "Who touched it last?" If you say "The offense" then you have lied to the coach. You don't know who touched it last. Never make a call when you do not know what happened.

Wait until someone has possession and hit the whistle. Check with your partner and either BC violation or IW.

I agree with BayState. If you don't see it, you cannot call it.

-Josh

My suggestion would be to not do this. Ever. This is what separates us from the spectators. Spectators make calls based on what they think they see. Referees make calls based on what we actually see.

If you don't see it, you can't call it. What if your partner doesn't see it either, and it was a perfectly legal play? As referees, we miss things on occassion. Sometimes we miss them at very inconvenient times. It's all part of the job.

I would rather miss a borderline violation than call a borderline legal play dead.

BTW, odds are if this ball was thrown to the backcourt, the defense did it on purpose.

If the ball was thrown then it had to have been controlled. And if it was controlled, it was an offensive player who threw it. But, I think your point is that it was thrown toward the opponents' basket which was the team that WAS on defense.

But back to the point, hold your whistle on this play.

The Devil's Advocate
 

I see posts on this forum all the time that relate to "get the call right." I also see posts that refer to an IW followed by "tying your shoe." Apparently it is important to us to get the call right and we do not mind an IW.

With this in mind, if the Trail's last knowledge was that Team A had control and Player A1 was the last known touch to the Trail (even though he knows there was some action following this touch) and Player A2 was the first to touch it in Team A's backcourt, Why not blow the whistle, keep your palm up without signaling a violation and quickly ask your partner for any information differing from yours.

If your partner has no information, give the signal and rule appropriately. If he has information different from yours, give the "my bad tap", point toward Team A's basket and point to an OOB spot for throw-in. You could probably get this done in 5 seconds or less and the only explanation for coaches would be, "my mistake, no violation."

In addition, "Never" and "Do Not Ever" is pretty "strong medicine" for a game like basketball.

I go back to my first post in this. If I don't know those two things for certain, I'm not calling it.

1. Defense never gained control, even momentarily.
2. The offense was the last to touch it in the FC.

We don't do this because of 2 reasons:
First, you're making a call you're not sure of, and hoping your partner saw something different and will bail you out if you're incorrect. If the scrum for the ball was outside of his/her primary, there's a good chance they didn't see anything.
Second, it's not proper mechanics. How does your partner know what you've called if you haven't made a signal yet? Are you running across the court to tell them what violation you've got and check with him/her to see if they've got something different? The only time I hold my signal is when there's a double whistle.

I'd rather miss a foul/violation that actually happened, rather than make a call and penalize a team for something that didn't.

These two statements are in direct conflict with each other. How can you <B>know</B> A1 was the last to touch, if you <B>also know</B> there was action after the touch? What if A2 was first to touch in the backcourt, but it was a race with B2, and B2 ended up with the ball and was going up for a layup when you blow your whistle to confirm what your partner had on the backcourt violation?

Would you do the same for shooting fouls? A1 goes up for a shot, you can't really see for sure if B1 blocked the ball or hit A1's arm, so would you blow the shot dead, confer with your partner for what they saw, then just go with an IW in that case? Of course not.

I understand your theory about wanting to "get the play right". But, in most cases, stopping a play to check with your partner when you're not sure is not the way to handle it. We need to be sure about our calls. "Never guess" is about as close to an absolute in basketball as you can get. However, when we're not sure about certain calls, such as an OOB call when a pass comes from outside our area, we can ask for help. The difference is the whistle is blown because we already know the ball went OOB, we just need help on who touched it last. In your case, you're stopping play when it's not clear there was a violation.

Very recently I had a play that was very, very simlar.
I'm trail, ball is passed by Team A to the far corner in front of lead.
Entry pass into post is deflected, players converge, and someone bats the ball back towards the division line.
Team A collects the ball in the back court. I have nothing.
If my partner had come strong with a backcourt violation call it would have been OK with me (ball was clearly retrieved in the backcourt), but I had absolutely no knowledge of who batted the ball. I'm never going to make that call without seeing who touched.

The two scenarios would be:

1) Hold the whistle, Team A has ball about 70 feet from basket. Everything resets. You can tell coach B, "Sorry, coach. Didn't see who touched it last". If it was just totally obvious to everyone and you were the only guy in the gym who missed it, your partner could kill it and tell you what he saw.

2) Blow the whistle. Talk to partner. Partner either overturns call or says he/she didn't see it either. In the latter, you have to tell coach A, "Sorry, coach. Didn't see who touched it last. But I originally called a backcourt, so we're giving the ball to the other team."
Good luck with that.

One thing that is helpful in these situations it body language by players. Sometimes the offensive player will give it away by their reluctance to be the first to touch in the backcourt.