last to touch - first to touch
 

At a high school camp with NFHS rules.

A1 has control of the ball in the frontcourt. B1 knocks the
ball loose. A2 knocks the ball so B1 can't grab it, then chases
it down in back court.

I whistle back court violation. First one I have ever called on
the "last to touch - first to touch" rule.

Coach yells at me. At next time out, D2 evaluator tells me I
messed up because team control ended on B1's tap. I say
"yes sir" to the evaluator and smile.

4-12-3 says team control continues until opponent secures control.
9-9-1 says this is backcourt violation

What good is being right if nobody knows? :)
Or, did I kick this call and I am still clueless?

Tell the D2 evaluator to go back to working driveway basketball. Under NF rules, team control ends when there is a shot, a dead ball or the other team gains control. Team B would have only gained team control if one of their players gained player control. Player control is defined as holding or dribbling a live ball inbounds. B1 did neither, so no player control, therefore no team control for team B, therefore no loss of team control for team A.

You are not the clueless one here. You did not kick it. Of course, if B1 would have kicked it, it's a dead ball. ;)

Don't be too hard on the evaluator- It was a good camp and he gave me ten
other suggestions that were great advice. I'm guessing the college rule is
different as well.

In this case, I blame the rule. A rule is not very effective when 99% of coaches and players don't know or understand it. This rule falls in that category.

But this an old topic on this forum. I shouldn't incite anything.:D

Nope, the NCAA rule is exactly the same. It is worded differently because of there being team control during a throw-in, but the written exceptions make the rule yield ALL of the same calls as at the NFHS level.
This D2 guy must be one of those officials with great "presence" to offset his lack of rules knowledge.

I blame the coaches, players, and officials who don't know or understand the rule. I have seen numerous backcourt violations passed on at the NCAA level because the "philosophy" that it is a picky call which will only upset people from the penalized team. :( Obviously, I don't agree with that thought.

Never Say "Yes Sir, But ..."
 

That's always the way to speak to evaluators at camps, no matter what the level, no matter how incorrect the evaluator is.

What a SHAME it is when evaluators teach the incorrect rule to the camper who has paid to get better :(
Especially on a rule that's the same at both levels the evaluator works :eek:

Believe it or not, I had a buddy tell me of a situation where the clinicians told a camper, for a player to establish themselves on the court they needed two feet inbounds... isn't that ruling the same in all 3 codes :rolleyes:

Me too :)

First of all, you handled the situation perfectly. You made the correct call, and you did not argue with the clinician even when you knew you were right...stuff happens and we have to be resilient and learn to bounce back. Hopefully you did not stew about it the rest of the game and let it affect you.

Secondly - was this a local HS camp (local to you)? If so, do you know this clinician or have any kind of way to contact him? If so, maybe contact him and ask the question - pose it as I really want to learn type of question. Chances are he will give a big "oops" you were right. After all, he's only human and we all make mistakes.

But kudos on handling it the way you did.

I would like to think i'd have handled it the same, but don't know. Having a rule book in my bag would have made it difficult to let that one go.

"Show me."

Some of us have learned the hard way that sometimes even when we are right, we are wrong...getting into a pissing contest with a clinician - even when you prove yourself right according to the rule book - is not necessarily a good way to help your career. Posing it as a question - please help me understand this - is a much better way to go. That way everyone benefits.

I have to disagree.

I detest @ss-kissing, and I see no valid reason why someone in a position of power or supervisory role should be agreed with when one KNOWS that such a person is dead wrong.

While acting in this way may allow the individual official to advance, this is exactly the kind of stuff that prevents officiating in general from advancing.

This isn't the military.

By the time I posted here, I had checked the rule book and knew the answer
and knew I was right.

Standing in front of the evaluator, I wasn't so sure. I think the best advice
to a young official is not to argue with an evaluator. Most of the time the
more senior official is right, and you lose valuable mentoring time with your
nose in the rule book. Not to mention you may hurt your career.

I am only a second year official, but early on I decided never to trust anyone
on a rule interpretation. I always look it up myself to confirm later. The rule
book is the only ultimate authority (except for this forum of course :)).

Oh, I agree. Like I said, I would hope I would have handled it the same way. And if I couldn't have found an acceptably diplomatic way to say it, I would have left it alone.

I disagree. An official who stunts his own advancement out of principal in a situation like this isn't going to help officiating advance if he's stuck at the bottom. Frankly, it's going to take people who, for the most part, have played the game even though they think it's crap.

No, it's not the military; it's politics.

@ss kissing? Really? How in the world would you consider a measured appropriate response in this sitaution @ss kissing? The alternative is to stand on principle, disagree with the evaluator, and possibly get labeled as argumentative or worse.

You may make your point and prove the evaluator wrong. He gets pi$$ed, the camper gets dinged or worse. And yet you see this as a potential advancement of officiating? This would be a case of winning a battle and blowing yourself up in the process. I couldn't disagree more.

Exactly...some people would argue that they were right and the evaluator was wrong, regardless of the consequences to them or their career. There are better ways to handle things than the in your face "you are wrong and I am right" attitude. But, again, some people don't get that and never will. For a second year official, rsl handled this in a remarkably mature manner.

I worked a summer camp about 5 years ago in which I found out later that the 4 evaluators who were there intentionally questioned correct rule interps with some of the newer officials just to see if they would stand up for their beliefs. Only one (out of four) did and on the final day of camp, he was praised for "sticking to his guns when he knew he was right".

I'm not saying they came down hard on the other guys, they just wanted to make the point that if you are sure you have the rule right, you should tell your partner and offer to look it up.

Too late, you incited by posting. ;)

Hey! Brownnosing is not tolerated here! ummm, maybe just a wee bit! :D

It should not matter how long you have been officiating
 

...Nobody should allow you to kick a rule like this evaluator wanted you to.
You and your crew should strive to get it right. I bet you'll never again have a problem with this type of play.

A few points are missing in your description

Where were B1 and A2 when they touched the ball?
When the ball was knocked out of A1 possesion did it touch the centre line or backcourt.

Cannot answer the question unless the above is known :confused:

Not sure if FIBA is different, but the center line is the backcourt.

Yes you are right they are one and the same, I really was trying to get an understanding of the position of B1 and the ball after B1 "knocks the ball"

At times the ball/feet on the line is/are overlooked, hence the question.

Regardless, i believe the answers are important to determine the call. No?

Based on the OP, "A2 knocks the ball so B1 can't grab it, then chases
it down in back court." This tells me, intuitively, that they are both starting from the front court. Whether the ball bounces on the line or completely in the BC isn't relevant, I don't think. I would agree that A2 and B1's positioning is important, but I think it's safely implied from the OP that they were both in the FC.

Do not mean to be argumentitive, but in the defense of the "observer" we cannot assume that all where in FC. The observer could have noticed something that RSL forgot to mention in their OP.
For discussion sake assume that B1 was in the upper left corner BC and knocked the ball at a 45 degree angle to the lower right corner BC, they (A1 and B1 ) would not be able to grab the ball and RSL description would still be valid.

Saying "yes sir" is good in the middle of a game; "yes sir, could we discuss later" would have been better. :)

You have it right. A1, B1, and A2 were just above free throw line extended in the front court when the play started. Sorry, that should have been part of the original description.

Since this discussion went a lot further than I anticipated, let me be more
clear. I made the the call, the coach questioned the call and we started
play again. At the next time out, the coach questioned the call again.
During the time out, we went opposite table to meet with the evaluator.
I asked the evaluator if I got the call right, he gave me the incorrect
response I noted above. But, that call was not really on his agenda- he
gave me a rather quick response and then moved on to several other things
that he wanted to tell me. As I said earlier, other than the incorrect rule interp,
he was a great evaluator with lots of good suggestions. And, I think the
incorrect rule interp was partially because he was in a hurry to get on to
other things during the time out.

Given that the observer's rationale included nothing about where B1 or A2 were standing, we can make that assumption. His reasoning had to do with team control ending on a defensive tip, and there's no defense for that.

And don't worry about being argumentative, that's how this site works.

My issue with this is that his incorrect rule interp was based on a misunderstanding of a very basic rules tenent that has been the focus of a lot of rules changes over the past few years.

If he thinks team control ends on a defensive tip, that could lead to some very severe misapplications in some very tense situations.

RSL ... I had the same exact play you are describing in a Holiday tournament between two rival high schools. With 8 seconds to go in regulation, the score tied and the home team in possesion of the ball, exactly what you described happened.

I made the call and the home coach and crowd went nuts.

Immediately I realized nobody in the gym new the correct rule. So, I decided to go explain to the coach - he wanted no part of it. As I walked away to continue the game, my partner (2-man crew) came to me and said I had made the wrong call. He said in such away that the home coach heard it.

The visitors failed to score and we went into overtime and the home team did win.

After the game I showed my partner the rule and also showed the home coach the rule - he came to speak with me about it. He still did not believe me and check with our association assignor - a guy he knew and respected.

Long story short - they all know now! :)

OUCH! Say anything to your partner after the game about this part? :eek:

Yeah, did you show him the bus tread-marks all over your head and neck?!?