Because it's the rule; go with it. Frankly, my decision here would be level of play. First of all, you can't just try to decide what would have happened if you hadn't caught the ball. You caught it, deal with it from there.

If you blow your whistle, you have an IW, and need to get the ball in play by the rules. The first stop along the decision route is to see if there was team control. A player threw a pass, so that team still has control. Their ball, easy and simple.

If you play on (ideal in most cases), drop it and step away. I personally have no problem with Scratch's choice. With everyone confused, sometimes it's just best to stop and re-set everyone's brains.

I don't believe that would be an accurate application of the rules. Me catching the ball was a reaction.

We had this exact at least very close to exact situation presented at a clinic this year. We were told in the event that an official has to catch a pass that is thrown at him to prevent injury then the resulting possesion will be determined by going to the AP arrow.

That would be incorrect with NFHS and NCAA rules; perhaps it's different with FIBA?

I can't find any support for this decision either way in the FIBA rulebook either. The rational was we don't know what the result would have been if the ball had not been caught, it may have gone OB or been intercepted, or may even have been an assist for an easy layup. No way of knowing for sure so therefore, like when your not sure who knocked the ball out of bounds (ie. 2 players from opposite teams tip the ball at the same time) go to the arrow.

But the ball isn't out of bounds and there is still team control. I don't understand that rationale at all.

If you have an IW in the middle of a pass, do you go to the arrow? The problem is, the ball was caught, so you can't pretend otherwise by trying to determine "what would have happened if...."

Not sure if your asking or telling me something here :confused:

Like I said I can't find supporting references either way in the rule book. As for the second part of your statement I agree, you cant determine possesion based on the what if's. I think this is what the clinician was getting at. Just dropping the ball where you catch it is what I would do but how do you know that the play was not affected by your actions.

In this case I will do as told until told differently by someone else with authority.

Just to add my name to the hat - I have also caught a pass directed at me out of a natural reaction as a player. I dropped the ball and also made a point to back away from it, raised my arms in the air to really accentuate the "have it boys!" and they hustled after it like a loose ball. If nobody reacts I might have said "live ball" or something along those lines to indicate play was expected to continue.

Of course, this was because I never considered myself a 3-point shooter and coach was yelling if players took bad shots.

Just to add a little complexity, A1 is dribbling, ends her dribble and mistakenly passes to the official instead of her teammate. Official drops the ball immediately upon catching it, and A1 scrambles to the ball and picks it up before it touches another player.

What do you have?

My IW is looking better all the time! :)

I guess you would have to call an illegal dribble.

LOL
Yep, Illegal dribble.

Unless you judge the pass was really a fumble ;)

Sorry, I meant to add, "When in Rome." I understood you were passing on your instructions. I was just wondering about the ramifications of their ruling; also about the loose ball issue in particular.

If FIBA has a loose ball provision, the ruling would make more sense. If not, then any IW without "player control" (rather than just "team control") would result in AP since you really don't know what would have happened.

I understand what you're saying and would never encourage you to depart from your instructions on this.