M&M Guy wroteAlso, if the clock does not show tenths, and you know the display had 0 while the horn had not sounded, then you cannot put 1 second back on because you would be putting back more time than what is allowed.
M&M Guy wroteEither way, in the case of a clock that does not show tenths, how can you justify putting 1.0 seconds on the clock when there could actually be .5 left? How is that "fair" to the other team, letting the one team have twice the amount of correct time left, just to put "something" back up?
If the clock doesn't do 10ths of a second, 1 second resolution is the best you've got. So it's 1 second, or 0 seconds. Take your pick. Welcome back to the 1980's.
M&M Guy wroteNow can you honestly tell me you know the difference between .9 seconds and .6, for example?
Can you honestly tell me your arm swing is exactly 5 seconds and not 4.8 or 5.5 seconds? How close to three seconds is your mental "one-thousand-one"? The rules allow for some pretty inaccurate "definite information," giving tacit acknowledgement that "the best we can do" is the best that we've got.
bbcof83 wroteI am not going to allow a "slow trigger finger" by the timer to end a well contested game.
We haven't even addressed the situation where the V team requests the time out and the home scorer lets the clock run out. This doesn't always happen innocently.
BadNewsRef wroteI would love hear the discussion with Team B's coach explaining how you came up with your best estimate, especially if that coach knows the rule.
Snaqwells wroteYou're putting yourself into a position of having to either lie to the coach or tell him you're guessing....Which are you going with?
I'm going to get both coaches together very briefly, and I am going to tell them what we're going to do. We're not going to discuss how we came to our decision about how much time to put back on the clock.
Snaqwells wroteIf you guess 1 second, and the replay later shows .8 seconds when you blew your whistle, you're screwed.
I am equally screwed if the replay shows there is .8 seconds and my crew ended the game because we didn't know how much time to put on the clock. Sure, we'd be right by rule. But we're still screwed.
bbcof83 wroteYou're probably right. It just makes me squirm thinking about it. I guess I just need to make sure this NEVER happens to me.
Amen, Brother! (Or is it Sister?)
rfp wroteBut in my sitch, there were no errors. The timer responded as quickly as he could once he heard the whistle. Despite his immediate reaction, the horn signaled the end of the period. The officials did look up after blowing the whistle -- they saw 0:00.0. No mistake on anyone's part. But the officials and everyone else knows that the whistle came first followed very shortly by the final horn. There is "definite knowledge" that there was a lag between the whistle and the horn. The unknown is how much of a time difference. So the questions is, can you have definite knowledge without knowing the exact amount of time?
I submit that all of that information contributes to "definite knowledge". You know there was a discernible gap between the whistle and the horn. You know that the time on the clock when the whistle was blown was the amount of time it takes to blow then look. You know the timer reacted immediately, but was unable to stop the clock in time. Put all that together, and you should be able to come to an estimate that is accurate to 1 or 2 10ths, and a heck of a lot more accurate than are allowed when timing something with an arm swing.
just another ref wroteThe phrase in the rule is "definite knowledge relative to the time involved."
Without knowing an exact amount, there is no definite knowledge.
Funny how inexact "definite knowledge" can be. 😉