Hypothetical Question: Is this player oob, or inbounds?
 

Watching a game on TV today, and a sort of hypothetical situation occurred to me, which led to the question, does a player have to have touched the floor inbounds to be considered inbounds?

Here's the sitch:

A1 is inbounding the ball. She throws it toward A5 who is near the division line, but before it gets there, B1 jumps up in front of A5 and swats it back toward the endline. A1 instinctively jumps up (from oob) to catch the ball, realizes that she still has oob status, and so reaches out with one hand to touch A2's head. Does that touch give A1 inbounds status?

No. Where does the rule say that touching someone gives you inbound status?

Peace

7-1-1: A player is out of bounds when he/she touches the floor, or any object other than a player/person, on or outside a boundary.

If touching a person who is out of bounds does not cause a player to be out of bounds, I would say the reverse is also true.

In other words, a player touching another player is not the same as the player touching the floor at that other player's location.

Player location doesn't quite work the same as ball location.

It was a good question, Juulie, but the rule is very clear that an airborne player's location is determined by where that player last contacted the FLOOR or an extension of the floor. Other players or people are not considered extensions of the floor.

4-35-3 . . . The location of an airborne player with reference to the three factors
of Article 1 is the same as at the time such player was last in contact with the floor
or an extension of the floor, such as a bleacher.

What if the player who was OOB jumped up and touched an official who was standing inbounds? Since a ball hitting an official is considered hitting the floor at the spot where the official is standing, would the same theory apply to a player touching an official? Would that player now be considered touching the floor inbounds?

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I immediately thought of the same scenario. My initial response was, "why would an official be so close to the player that they would be able to do that?" I know . . . I probably don't want to know. :D