Shot clock malfunction

[zenman]

NCAA Mens Basketball game.
9 seconds remain on the shot clock the clock malfunctions and stops resets to 35. The officials notice and stop to correct. After reviewing they first determine there were 11 seconds to run off. This of course would cause a shot clock violation. They decide to ignore this and give the team with the ball 3 seconds on shot clock.

Did they do the correct thing in this case?

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by zenman

NCAA Mens Basketball game.
9 seconds remain on the shot clock the clock malfunctions and stops resets to 35. The officials notice and stop to correct. After reviewing they first determine there were 11 seconds to run off. This of course would cause a shot clock violation. They decide to ignore this and give the team with the ball 3 seconds on shot clock.

Did they do the correct thing in this case?

I can't see how any officiating crew could render such a decision. You must not have the facts straight.

[zenman]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

I can't see how any officiating crew could render such a decision. You must not have the facts straight.

Actually I think I was mistaken there were 6 seconds when it malfunctioned. The announcers on ESPN said that the ref originally signaled it would be the defense's ball but changed it. I was counting during the replay and it clearly was at least 11 seconds.

But yes they did do this.

[Nevadaref]

"Mich vs Minn today"

Well that explains it. Was Ed Hightower perhaps was working that contest?

[zenman]

It was Ed's call to make

It was hard to find anything in the rule book that covers this so I assumed the refs had to make the call on how to handle.

I thought it should have been defense ball and a time correction made.
The coach didn't make an issue so he seemed ok with it.

[M&M Guy]

I was watching that game, and noticed the problem as well. Actually, what happened was the after resetting the shot clock after a shot, both the game clock and shot clock stopped for a period of time, then started again. The shot clock ran down to 9 before Donnie Gray blew the whistle to stop play. Ed spent a long time at the monitor, determined that 11 more seconds should've run off the clock, then made the determination that it wouldn't be fair to penalize the team with a shot clock vioation since the team didn't know the clock should've run down, so they only took off 6 seconds off both the game and shot clock, and played from there. As it turned out, there was a shot clock violation anyway after 3 seconds.

That is what the announcers were told. I really hope there was another reason.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by M&M Guy

I was watching that game, and noticed the problem as well. Actually, what happened was the after resetting the shot clock after a shot, both the game clock and shot clock stopped for a period of time, then started again. The shot clock ran down to 9 before Donnie Gray blew the whistle to stop play. Ed spent a long time at the monitor, determined that 11 more seconds should've run off the clock, then made the determination that it wouldn't be fair to penalize the team with a shot clock vioation since the team didn't know the clock should've run down, so they only took off 6 seconds off both the game and shot clock, and played from there. As it turned out, there was a shot clock violation anyway after 3 seconds.

That is what the announcers were told. I really hope there was another reason.

If that's true, then I don't agree with Hightower's decision. A team had already possessed the ball for longer than the allotted time. He gained definitive knowledge of this and that 11 seconds of playing time should have elapsed, yet only removed six seconds from the clock! So he just disregarded those five additional seconds of game action and declared them to have never occurred. If your account is accurate, then he knew that the time which he was setting wasn't correct. I don't see how he could purposely make the game clock wrong and believe that he was doing the right thing.

We each have our individual opinions of what constitutes fair and that is what makes such situations difficult. Personally, I think that what he did in trying to be fair to the offensive team was very unfair to the defensive team.

The offense already had the ball for more than their allowed amount of time, even though they couldn't see a display which advised them of that. That is a mitigating factor, but still they had to have a sense that they had had the ball for too long and needed to try for goal. On the other hand the defense did exactly what they should have done for more time than is required by the rules and they couldn't see a display either. They had to be thinking that they had been playing good defense for a heck of a long time.
Therefore, giving the offense even more time than what they had already used, which was determined to be clearly in excess of their permitted amount, doesn't seem right to me.

But hey, he's working D1 and I'm not, so guess whose opinion matters?

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

If that's true, then I don't agree with Hightower's decision.

I agree as well, but that is why I also said I hope there's another explanation. I didn't actually count out the amount of time the clock was stopped, so I don't know if it really was 11 seconds or not. I was only paying a small amount of attention to the game, and focused in when there was that big delay. I'm only going by what the announcers said, and we all know how credible they can be when it comes to officiating and rules.