Closely Guarded Dilemma

[Adam]

Originally Posted by lmeadski

I do know how the rule is written. However, I have never seen an official make a five second call on a player who is not advancing to the basket and his defender is squarely behind him (not uncommon when teams are trying to run down the clock). In fact, in watching many games during this summer tournament, I rarely saw refs chop on closely guarded at all? JW - how many closely guarded calls do you all make in the course of a normal varsity game?

One or two at most, but an offense player retreating from the defender is not sufficient reason to cease your count. By not rewarding good defense in this way, you're opening the game up to rough play.

And I have made this call.