bad information

[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.

[mbyron]

Ultimate responsibility for knowing how many time outs have been called lies with the coach. That's why the T for calling an excess TO goes to the coach, not the scorer or the team or (ha) the official.

The scorer and officials do their best to assist with that count. But just as we help with but don't bear responsibility for ensuring the proper number of players on the court, we help with but don't bear responsibility for teams taking the correct number of TO's.

[VaTerp]

Originally Posted by mbyron

Ultimate responsibility for knowing how many time outs have been called lies with the coach. That's why the T for calling an excess TO goes to the coach, not the scorer or the team or (ha) the official.

The scorer and officials do their best to assist with that count. But just as we help with but don't bear responsibility for ensuring the proper number of players on the court, we help with but don't bear responsibility for teams taking the correct number of TO's.

I dont say anything to coaches about how many TOs they have left for the exact reason of potential misinformation from the table. And when I have a partner who comes back from the table and says "white has 1 '30' and 1 full left" I politely let them know I don't care.

It is not my responsibility as an official to track TOs. That lies with the coaches and the official book. My job is to grant the TO if it is requested by the HC or a player on the court. I routinely see benches with 4 or 5 asst coaches these days. The HC should have one of them be in charge of tracking TOs. Thats what we did when I coached.

Honestly, I did not know the rule that the scorer is to communicate the last TO through an official. I will start doing this but it is still the responsibility of the scorer to let the officials know. I will not seek out this information.

Bottom line is that coaches are responsible for their TOs. They should have an asst keep track and double check with the book. As an official Im going to grant a TO if called. And if its excessive then Im going to administer the proper penalty. IMO its hard enough to call a good game without worrying about things that are other people's responsibilities.

[CMHCoachNRef]

Originally Posted by mbyron

Ultimate responsibility for knowing how many time outs have been called lies with the coach. That's why the T for calling an excess TO goes to the coach, not the scorer or the team or (ha) the official.

The scorer and officials do their best to assist with that count. But just as we help with but don't bear responsibility for ensuring the proper number of players on the court, we help with but don't bear responsibility for teams taking the correct number of TO's.

The ultimate "keeper of the information" is the SCORER NOT the COACH. So, if I have called two timeouts in a game -- and I KNOW I have called two timeouts -- BUT, the official book says I have called FIVE, then I have ZERO left. As wrong as this may be, the official book says I have none left -- and I am informed by the official/scorer that I have none left -- I have no timeouts left.

It does NOT MATTER that the coach has actually only called two timeouts. The book is what matters. So, it is NOT THE COACH who is ultimately responsible for counting timeouts, it is the official scorer.

If the official scorer documents one thing, communicates that information to the coaches and then changes the documenation, but fails to communicate said change to the coaches, well.....

[Adam]

Originally Posted by CMHCoachNRef

The ultimate "keeper of the information" is the SCORER NOT the COACH. So, if I have called two timeouts in a game -- and I KNOW I have called two timeouts -- BUT, the official book says I have called FIVE, then I have ZERO left. As wrong as this may be, the official book says I have none left -- and I am informed by the official/scorer that I have none left -- I have no timeouts left.

It does NOT MATTER that the coach has actually only called two timeouts. The book is what matters. So, it is NOT THE COACH who is ultimately responsible for counting timeouts, it is the official scorer.

Yes, but if you were told you were out and you knew you had one left, would you not at least ask them to verify?

I agree this is like 6 players on the court. We try to stop it every time, and are instructed to count and not start a throw-in until each team has 5, but it's still up to the coach to count them.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by mbyron

Ultimate responsibility for knowing how many time outs have been called lies with the coach. That's why the T for calling an excess TO goes to the coach, not the scorer or the team or (ha) the official.

I'm surprised that no one has corrected this statement yet. Requesting an excessive time-out is a TEAM technical foul per 10-1-7. It is not charged directly or indirectly to the head coach.