bad information

[CMHCoachNRef]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

I quit doing even that a long time ago.

Originally Posted by just another ref

Is it a rule for the official to inform the coach? Yes.


Is this the same thing as the OP? I don't think so. Official fails to notify coach of no timeouts. An oversight. Oops.

How many coaches enter the game thinking: When I call my last timeout, the officials will tell me. I'd say not very many.

Official tells coach he has one, when in fact he has none. Potentially a major screwup.

I must confess, I just don't understand this -- and, yes, this could be another reason for a divide between coaches and officials.

Why is it that NO ONE wants to take a SIMPLE RESPONSIBILITY of notifying a coach OFFICIALLY about something as important as how many TIMEOUTS he/she has left????

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by fullor30

Precisely, that said do you ever ask table where are we on TOs? And if table relays info to you, just as assistant wanders over to catch tail end of conversation, poses question to you, how many left? Do you play Marcel Marceau and point to table or relay info?

I really don't want to know unless one team is dead. IMO, that's what an assistant is for.

What does Bob do?

I would refer the AC to the scorekeeper.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by fullor30

Precisely, that said do you ever ask table where are we on TOs? And if table relays info to you just as assistant wanders over to catch tail end of conversation, poses question to you how many left? Do you play Marcel Marceau and point to table or relay info?

I really don't want to know unless one team is dead. IMO, that's what an assistant is for.

What does Bob do?

1) I ask only if I can't remember. I try to know how many of each type so when they've used all their 30s (for example) I can just grant a full without asking "how long" and getting the "I only have fulls, you dumbass" look back.

2) Coaches usually say something like "two left, right?" If the information agrees, I acknowledge it.

[CMHCoachNRef]

Originally Posted by Dbyb

JV-G game. At 3 minutes in the 4th quarter R goes to table and asks for time outs left to each team. Scorer says Home has 0 time outs left and Visitors have 1. R conveys this information to each coach. At 1 minute left, Visitor coach calls a time out. R grants the time out, reports it and has the timer start the clock. Scorer then tells the R that Visitors, in fact, had no timeouts left and that earlier she had made a mistake and should have said Home had 1time out and Visitors had 0. (The 16 year old scorer just reversed the time outs and there was no visitor book to cross check). R now assesses a tech to the Visitors. Visitor coach is understandably upset having taken a time out that she was informed she had and then assessed a tech for not having it. The tech was assessed, both shots made, and she lost by 1 point.

Once the time out had been granted, was there any other option than the one we took?

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

No.

But, you could have avoided the situation by not telling the coach she had one left. Only inform them when they have zero left.

OK. So, for the sake of argument (that's why we have discussions, right?), as an official/scorer, they FAILED to notify this coach he had zero timeouts left. While not being part of their prescribed duties, it is EXPECTED that the scorer is keeping track of TOs taken throughout the game, otherwise, they would not know when a team has taken five.

I know what Nevada and some others are going to do here, but, in this case, we are going with the scorer's information that was communicated TO THE COACHES. I am going to grant the time out, NOT assess a technical foul and inform the scorer to more closely keep track of timeout counts in the future.

I can only assume that the coach was NOT properly notified when he/she had taken their last time out. Based on information provided FROM the OFFICIAL SCORER, the coach used that information and was PENALIZED significantly.

What is the penalty levied against the scorer/official for FAILING to properly notify a coach that he/she has taken his/her final allowable time out? Do they get a pencil inserted somewhere? Penalizing this team in this instance is NOT consistent with our jobs of keeping the game fair.

jmo.....Yes, I am thinking as a coach, but I would NOT want to win a game this way, either. In this case, one coach's pain is another's gift. Therefore, my view is actually "coach neutral" in this case.

[Adam]

Let's assume no information came from the table, then the coach requests a TO and you find out it's excessive. Are you going to ignore the T?

[jdw3018]

Originally Posted by CMHCoachNRef

OK. So, for the sake of argument (that's why we have discussions, right?), as an official/scorer, they FAILED to notify this coach he had zero timeouts left. While not being part of their prescribed duties, it is EXPECTED that the scorer is keeping track of TOs taken throughout the game, otherwise, they would not know when a team has taken five.

I know what Nevada and some others are going to do here, but, in this case, we are going with the scorer's information that was communicated TO THE COACHES. I am going to grant the time out, NOT assess a technical foul and inform the scorer to more closely keep track of timeout counts in the future.

This error is no different than a scoring error that may change the outcome of a game, or an official's error in putting the ball in play with 6 players on the court. There is a penalty.

Is it fair to the opposing team that the coach gets to use an excessive timeout at, possibly, a very critical point in the game? Perhaps it prevents a turnover that would have given the opposing team a chance to win? Does your point of view change if it is the home team that is given bad information by their own scorer?

I hope you'll re-think your position here. While unfortunate, the excessive timeout needs to be penalized.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by CMHCoachNRef

1) I know what Nevada and some others are going to do here, but, in this case, we are going with the scorer's information that was communicated TO THE COACHES. I am going to grant the time out, NOT assess a technical foul and inform the scorer to more closely keep track of timeout counts in the future.

2) What is the penalty levied against the scorer/official for FAILING to properly notify a coach that he/she has taken his/her final allowable time out?

3)Yes, I am thinking as a coach,

1) And from an officials' standpoint, if you do so:
a) You just knowingly screwed the other team
b) You may have cost yourself your career by doing so
If you pull that one at the state playoff level with it's attendant spotlight and publicity, you may never work at that level again. And if a complaint comes in against your actions, pray tell just what you are going to say to respond to that complaint.
It's never a good idea to ignore a plainly written rule just because you don't agree with it. And it's never a good idea to advocate that other officials should do so either. Two wrongs don't make a right.

2) It could possibly cost them their job. But that's got nothing to do with us either. That's the responsibility of whoever is assigning the table crew. It's their job to deal with it, not ours.

3) Yes, I am thinking as an official...

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

1)
It's never a good idea to ignore a plainly written rule just because you don't agree with it. And it's never a good idea to advocate that other officials should do so either. Two wrongs don't make a right.

While i generally agree with your point, I think you'll agree that "never" is a little too broad....unless you normally call and advocate the calling of a multiple foul.

[CMHCoachNRef]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

1) And from an officials' standpoint, if you do so:
a) You just knowingly screwed the other team
b) You may have cost yourself your career by doing so
If you pull that one at the state playoff level with it's attendant spotlight and publicity, you may never work at that level again. And if a complaint comes in against your actions, pray tell just what you are going to say to respond to that complaint.
It's never a good idea to ignore a plainly written rule just because you don't agree with it. And it's never a good idea to advocate that other officials should do so either. Two wrongs don't make a right.

2) It could possibly cost them their job. But that's got nothing to do with us either. That's the responsibility of whoever is assigning the table crew. It's their job to deal with it, not ours.

3) Yes, I am thinking as an official...

JR,
I passed this question along to one of our local rules interpretors. His view, interestingly, was basically the same as mine. Since the information came from the Official Book, that informatoin is, well, official. Therefore, he would not allow such a change to take place in the book, thus granting the timeout without penalty.

I have posed the exact question to numerous officials since this posting hit this past week. NOT ONE official that I have presented this situation to would call this technical foul. One official who has worked a State Final indicated that he would have, when informed of the error by the timer, not grant the timeout (since the coach would not have requested it had he not been informed that he did, indeed, have one). He would have immediately put the ball back in play and not allow any subs.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by CMHCoachNRef

JR,
I passed this question along to one of our local rules interpretors. His view, interestingly, was basically the same as mine. Since the information came from the Official Book, that informatoin is, well, official. Therefore, he would not allow such a change to take place in the book, thus granting the timeout without penalty.

I have posed the exact question to numerous officials since this posting hit this past week. NOT ONE official that I have presented this situation to would call this technical foul. One official who has worked a State Final indicated that he would have, when informed of the error by the timer, not grant the timeout (since the coach would not have requested it had he not been informed that he did, indeed, have one). He would have immediately put the ball back in play and not allow any subs.

That's because you didn't ask me. Of course, you didn't have to as you already know what I would do.
Oh, and I've worked several State Finals, if that means anything to you.
Coaches should be able to count to five. It is their responsibility to know how many time-outs they have used and have remaining.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by CMHCoachNRef

JR,
I passed this question along to one of our local rules interpretors. His view, interestingly, was basically the same as mine. Since the information came from the Official Book, that informatoin is, well, official. Therefore, he would not allow such a change to take place in the book, thus granting the timeout without penalty.

I have posed the exact question to numerous officials since this posting hit this past week. NOT ONE official that I have presented this situation to would call this technical foul. One official who has worked a State Final indicated that he would have, when informed of the error by the timer, not grant the timeout (since the coach would not have requested it had he not been informed that he did, indeed, have one). He would have immediately put the ball back in play and not allow any subs.

Interesting. You have a local rules interpreter that advocates ignoring a very plainly written rule. And you haven't found any officials at all in your area that would also also follow a plainly written rule--for whatever reasons. And you've got a state final official that also wouldn't follow a plainly written rule. A state final official that would grant a TO, find out that it's an excess TO, and then cancel the TO so that he didn't have to call a "T". I'd love to see your state final official make that call at the end of a state championship game. Fwiw and if it'll make you feel better, Chris Webber would probably agree with that state official in a heartbeat though . Methinks that your area has a heckuva lot of work to do in the education of their officials. Note that's jmo.

In my experience, I don't know one good official that wouldn't make that call. They might not like the rule personally and they also personally might not want to follow the rule, but they would do it. the caveat obviously is that I and they are not in your area(I think).

And information from the scorebook is..well... official? Cool. Gee, I take it that under that philosophy we can't go back and correct any scorer's errors made under rule 2-10 or fix any scorer's mistakes under rule 2-11-11 either. Heckuva idea ...and a heckuva rules interpreter you got there, Coach. Btw, mentioning rule 2-11-11, I guess your rules interpreter never read the l'il sentence in there that says "A bookkeeping mistake may be corrected at any time until the referee approves the final score. Nope, once it's entered in the scorebook, it's ..well...official.

And right there, folks, you'll find the biggest difference between how a coach thinks and how an official thinks. A coach thinks that a rule should only be valid and enforced if it's fair to his team in his opinion. An official knows that the rules were written trying to be fair to BOTH teams, and that if we won't follow a plainly written rule it not only gives an unfair advantage to one team but it unfairly penalizes the other team at the same time. You only worry about YOUR team, coach. But we have to worry about BOTH teams. And if we don't call that deserved "T" in the play being discussed, we just screwed the other team.

Sorry, coach, we completely disagree philosophically on this one and we always will.

[CMHCoachNRef]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

No.

But, you could have avoided the situation by not telling the coach she had one left. Only inform them when they have zero left.

OK, Bob, a question. Since many an official on this forum thinks that coaches are pretty much ignorant about many things, this situation is not a stretch.

Let's say that a coach is not certain how many timeouts he has used. I know that this could never happen to an official since we never forget details like this, but this is a coach. How can the coach get the official information regarding timeouts he/she has left (I ROUTINELY here coaches ask this question during the course of the game)? Or is it impossible to get reliable information from a scorer?

Isn't this a reasonable request? Or is the number of timeouts used/remaining something that the official scorer can manipulate throughout the game. Any time a tight game is going down to the wire, this would be an accidental "gaffe" that the home scorer could communicate to the visiting team -- yeah, buddy, you have one timeout left when in reality the visiting team had none.

So, is a coach's request for the accurate number of timeouts he has left a reasonable one to ask of the official scorer? Isn't the accuracy of this information somewhat germaine to the game?

[Da Official]

Wow....that sux.