How do you call this
 

BV game. I am the new trail on a throw-in after a made basket. As the player is running the endline, he makes a pass from under the basket. The ball hits the padding on the underside of the backboard and caroms out to about the division line where it is gathered by his teammate.

My partner (new C) sounds his whistle and calls a throw-in violation due to the ball hitting the backboard. I went with his call at that point and we talked about it after the game.

Should this be called a violation?

The only part of the backboard that's OOB is the back. So, in your play, I'd have nothing unless it bounced backwards; which would indicate it hit at least a portion of the back of the backboard.

If it didn't hit the back of the backboard - I would have nothing as long as it rebounded onto the playing surface.

No violation. Only the back of the backboard and the supports are OOB.

7-1-2a 3
7.6.2 Situation

The ball must be thrown directly onto the court (unless to another OOB teammate) and anything inbounds is part of the court, which includes five of the six sides of the backboard (only the back side is OOB), so there's no violation. It's really the same as if the pass hit one of the officials who was standing inbounds.

Unless someone digs up a case play from a bazillion years ago that says different.

My judgement has been; if the ball goes forward, it did not hit the back of the backboard. Just as everyone so far has stated.

However, I see this called often. As a matter of fact, I have hated this call since November 2004 when my son was called for this violation at a crucial time in the game.

So I hope millions of officials see this post and never call it again.

The post game talk between my partner and me ended with, "Well I'll tell you this, you should let the official who is administering the throw-in make that call." I hope he lurks here!

I always make it a point when I motion for a kid to come outside the lane line to take a throw-in that he/she does not want to hit the back of the backboard. That said, it must've come from an angle to hit the underside of the backboard to deflect out to midcourt.

End line throwin, different animal and this play is always possible.

I also agree with Scratch, this is the on-ball official's call every time. C shouldn't be making this.

It wasn't a violation. No official should have made this call. ;)

:mad: With all due respect, shut up.

Don't hold your breath haha.

--

I hope this wasn't called during a crucial point in the game. I would have been all over your C if I was the coach of the team who just lost the throw-in.

I have to ask, Scratch. Why did your partner think it was a violation? Does he think hitting the anywhere on the BB is a violation on a throwin? Or did he somehow judge the ball to have hit the back?

He judged it to have hit the back. At least upon questioning, that is what he said.

He must have a hard time playing pool.

At the risk of sounding facetious, your partner wasn't Old School by any chance? Well, I guess there was very little risk.:D

The conversation bordered on ridiculous. That is why it ended like it did. I wasn't getting anywhere using angles and physics. :(

I can only imagine.

You cut me so deeply. :(

Hey, I said, "With all due respect."

I think we all know just how much respect is due. Don't mind me. I'm just going to find a quiet corner to curl up in while I cry.

Sines, Cosines, Tangents, Etc. ...
 

I've got my new slide rule ready if you need any help.

A new one? I thought they stopped making them.:confused:

You Thought Wrong ...
 

So where did you inbound the ball for the ensuing throw-in?

BTW you would likely be a fan of what I would have done in your shoes. It involves making the C eat his whistle. :D

Literally or metaphorically? Or both? :D

We inbounded under the basket.

C was bigger than me (I'm 6', 190# and one fit SOB) but dumber. Maybe I could have talked him into eating his whistle. It wouldn't have involved any of that fancy angularity. :D

I would have simply said, "Nope, that's not the rule. You have an inadvertent whistle. White ball right here (at the POI)."
If he didn't like it, too bad. It wasn't his decision to make in the first place.

2-6?

I could have done that. I chose not to.

As stated before, his contention was that it hit the back of the backboard. I would have hated to have our post game conversation during the game in front of coaches and fans. I felt silly enough arguing it in the locker rooom. I'm sure there is some old saying about arguing with an idiot that applies here, but I can't think of it now.

Oddly enough, no one made a single complaint (except me) about the call. Not even our other partner. Our partner that night took the Sgt Schultz position during post game.

Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level and then beat you using his experience.

Yep, that partner violated 2-6. He stepped out of the limits of his outlined duty on that play and attempted to overrule his partner's decision that the play was legal.

Why do people seem to believe that when two officials have differing opinions about a play (legal/illegal), that the decision of the one who sounds the whistle must prevail? What makes that official correct?

Uh, rule 2-6

You are missing the point.
2-6 says nothing about the whistle making that official's decision correct. That provision can just as well be used to justify going with the covering official's decision that no violation occurred.

Okay, if I play along, at best it is a tie. What are you gonna do, arm wrestle for it?

Go with the mechanics and defer to the official with the PCA.

I know that this may shock some people, but I am 100% in Nevada's camp on this. We are coming together and after a brief discussion he is going to announce inadvertant whistle, or I am throwing him under the bus and I am announcing inadvertant whistle. Either way, POI at the Sideline nearest whereever B's teammate caught the ball.

That partner has no business doing BV if he is making calls like that intentionally. If its a brain fart, which we've all had, I'll withhold my judgement until he poaches into my PCA.

PCA is a wonderful concept, but not one you will find in a rule book.

NFHS rule 2.6 states definitively that that the decision of the official that made the call will prevail unless that official decides to change their call. That doesn't make the official "correct". It just means that his/her call will stand if he/she wants it to stand.

Believe it or not, the "N' in NFHS does not stand for "Nevada". :) Soooooo, that's the way it is rules-wise, whether you agree with it or not.

And another career will then get stalled at the JV level......

Terrible, terrible, terrible advice. All you and Nevada are doing is making a bad situation worse.

I can understand any official making a bad call. Been there, done that. What I can't understand is one official deliberately throwing another official under the bus for making a bad call.

I agree. Correct or not, the calling official's call stands unless THEY choose to reverse it. If the non-calling official does anything more than STRONGLY suggest that they change it, they are the ones who will be the most wrong.

JR, my point is that both officials made a call/decision, but only one blew his whistle. The other official decided that the play was perfectly legal and chose not to sound his whistle. What I am asking is why does the decision of the whistle-blower override the decision of the non-whistler. There is no logical reason for it.

Why can't I say that the call that the play is legal will stand?

If we always go with the whistle, then we are actually allowing one official to always overrule the judgment of another who chose not to blow simply by putting air into his whistle. That's not right.

That's funny...my point is that only one official blew his whistle too. That would be the official that made the ONLY call on the play.

There was only ONE call made. And the RULES say that call will stand unless the official who made the call decides to change it. And if the official doesn't decide to change it, the RULES say that the call will then stand as called. And neither "logic" or "right and wrong" enter into the equation either.

You can't say that the call that the play was legal can stand because there was NO call that the play was legal. There was one call and one call only on this play.

Yes, the calling official may have screwed up badly. But that's on him. And don't forget that he thinks that he was right. That's why he doesn't want to change his call. Hopefully someone straightens him out later and he learns from it...and never makes the same mistake again. But if he doesn't learn from it, then it's still on him.

Ask yourself this....who would you rather work with?
1) a partner that screwed-up a call unknowingly and then admitted later that he was wrong when privately shown the right ruling, or
2) a partner that threw a fellow official under the bus, as Ignats75 so eloquently put it. A partner that just publically destroyed any credibility that the calling official may have had for the rest of that game.

Not a tough choice for me....and just about every official that I know. I can tell you that I would never work with that official again. I'd be afraid to turn my back on him.

Okay, for the sake of argument say that I am the Trail official and you are the C on this play. When the ball strikes the bottom of the backboard and continues onward into the inbounds area of the court, I loudly say, "Good, keep playing," and extend my arms as if a baseball umpire signaling a runner safe, then a second later you blow your whistle and call an OOB violation for the ball striking the back of the backboard.

Now whose call do we go with?

Nevadaref,
The problem with your logic is that ANYTIME an official makes a call in another official's primary when the primary official does NOT sound his whistle, the primary official can simply announce "inadvertent whistle" and resume with a POI throw-in. I think that this would lead to chaos over time.

I would prefer to go over to my partner at that point in time. I would simply state that it is physically impossible for the ball to hit the BACKSIDE of the backboard and continue forward. If he disagreed, I would start with a throw-in along the end line.

At halftime, I would spend a moment to diagram the backboard and a ball showing that without something very strange occurring (compression of the basketball accompanied by an extremely unusual rotation on the ball), a ball that goes onto the court did not come in contact with the back of the backboard.

Since most basketball coaches are not physics majors, this call likely could past muster without a big deal being made by either coach/team.

I agree with Jurassic here, I would not throw a partner under a bus for this call. But, momentarily meeting with him would be no different than a brief conference on an out of bounds call.

Just my $0.02.

You need to have a shirt with different colors to make this signal don't you?;)

The guy who blew the whistle, unless you can talk him out of his call.

How is this any different from the lead making the annoying foul tip signal as if to let everyone know there was a clean block, but the trail whistles for a foul on the exact same play?

And what the hell is this mechanic: "extend my arms as if a baseball umpire signaling a runner safe"?

It's not, nor is it any different than an official giving that signal as the ball heads into the backcourt only to have another official whistle a backcourt violation. What happens on those plays? Do we go with the tip-signaling official or the whistle-blower? ;)

It's certainly not an approved mechanic, but I wanted to make it clear to JR and everyone else that the non-whistling official was actually making a call, so I gave him some physical action. Otherwise, for some reason, people seem to think that the non-whistling official isn't making a decision. Perhaps they believe that he didn't observe the action.

In my experience we go with the whistle blower.

Same in mine.

1) You have to go with the whistle-blower, by rule, unless the whistle blower subsequently decides that he wants to change his call after consultation. A signal is NOT a call; it is merely a way to convey information to participants and spectators. And the information being conveyed by that signal can be just as erroneous as the call. I can give a tip signal to my partner on an OOB call, but I also may not have seen a subsequent tip that my partner did see.

2) Nevada, you can have the non-whistling official stand on his head and his signal can then come out of his butt for all I care. He still didn't make a call; he made a signal. A completely unecessary signal that he shouldn't have made btw imo.

Rule 2-6 supports the official making the call as being the only official who can subsequently change that call. Unless you can find something somewhere from the FED that says a non-calling official's signal by itself can overrule a call, let alone having an official who did not make a signal or blow his whistle being able to overrule a call, I don't know how you can continue to support your hypothesis. Rules rulz and it doesn't matter whether any of us disagrees with them.

We're both making the same points over and over and we sureasheck ain't ever gonna agree. Time to take this one to the barn.

So good to have the voice of common sense back::)

Thanks for the kind words.

Nevada may not agree with you though....:)

It's not like he has veto power.

This is a similar argument people might make for making the "blocked shot" signal. My counter argument is the absence of a signal is making a decision. We have seen where unapproved mechanics can get us in trouble. If you use your mechanic and then the C blows the ball dead on the throw-in, I'm going with the approved mechanic. This is similar to the lead doing the "blocked shot" mechanic and the trail calling a foul. Which one do we go with? The foul! Let's stay away from unapproved mechanics.