When does a 52-51 victory go into the books as a 59-57 overtime loss?
 

See Daily Herald's Basketball Focus 2009 | St. Charles East loses in strange fashion

Interesting. Bob, was this your game?

Looks like the officials did it the right way, given what they had to work with.

I try to make a habit to ask the official scorer to triple check their math before the ball is tipped for overtime. That way, if a discrepancy is found, you don't run into this situation halfway through overtime.

That would have prevented the error in this situation.

Yeah, but then you would have had a different problem. You would have had to inform one team that while they thought they were heading to overtime, the game is over and they lose.

Have them triple check the score at some point in that last minute, so you avoid it even sooner.

While I wasn't the R, I was on the game. The R did go over to the table before OT and had a long (but not long enough, or else too long) conversation.

Sounds like poor communication between the scorebooks, scoreboard/timer, & officials.

Just my 1 cent.

Brings up a point...

When I'm R, at halftime, and towards the end of the game when I get a chance to get over there I ask the official scorer: "Is everything ok with the book?"

Is that all I can do? Could I ask a better question? What do you ask?

Do you all three (h book, v book, scoreboard person) agree about fouls, points, possession arrow?"

This is what I ask in games that are anywhere near close.

Juulie,

Not always are personal fouls tracked by the scoreboard, sometimes it's just team fouls that are tracked.

Should it be mandatory that both personal & team fouls be tracked by both scorebook & scoreboard? Or just stay with team fouls tracked?

Not always do the scorebooks keep track of the possession arrow.

It's not mandatory that fouls are kept on the scoreboard. As an official, I prefer it, though.

The scorer should track the A/P. It's one of their duties and is in fact not a duty of the timer. The scorer is responsible for the arrow at the table.

I know that the timer's not responsible for the A/P, as it's the scorer's responsibility, however the games where I'm timer, the scorer never keeps track of the A/P :( Even when I mention to them they need to keep track of it.

Tell them that whatever AP device you use could malfunction as early as tonight.

Make a bet with them on how many times it\'ll be used during the game.