bad information
 

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?

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.

Wow....that sux.

This.

I never tell a coach anything regarding timeouts until they have used their final one. There is nothing in the book telling us to inform coaches how many they have when they still have some, and not getting in that habit keeps incidents like this from happening.

I never tell a coach anything about the timeout situation, and I don't even care to know myself. If one is requested, I'm obligated to grant it. Isn't this the job of their scorekeeper or assistants? Much like I don't care to know to know if a player has no fouls or 4. If I missed in the manual where it's my job to know this stuff, let me know. Wow, do I seem grumpy today?

I got out of that habit a long time ago. When they use their last, I tell them. I don't say anything before that.

What happens when you guys tell a coach they have no more TO's, and later they find out they did? Not as bad as using too many, but it's still an issue. That's why I say nothing. Though now I vaguely recall that we are supposed to inform them when they have used their allotment. Please inform.

It's under scorer's duties, 2-11-6, (paraphrasing)
notify a team and its coach, through an official, when that team has been granted its last timeout.

First Topic for New Forum ! ! !
 

What a great first topic for the soon-to-be-launched "Table Officials' Discussion Board" ! ! ! :)

When it's a game where either coach has been calling time out a lot during the game, I will go over table to check how many times out each team has left during a time out. Around here, some of the scorers know to tell the officials when a team has no timeouts left. I just like to know for reference if a team only has one or two time-outs left, and will let my partner know. I sometimes tell the coach when he/she has no more time outs, sometimes I don't. But I never tell them if they have 1-5 times outs left just because of the risk of this error. Teams should have a scorer (when visiting) to notify them when they are out of TOs. Coaches should also keep track (in V games usually one of the AC does this) or ask the scorer how many time outs they have left when they know they've used up at least 3.

Although it feels injustice, you did do the right thing to assess the T. However, I wouldn't have told the coach she only had one time out left.

I agree with everything you said, except for this sentence. You should start always telling a coach when he/she is out of time outs. While it's a duty of the scorer, the scorer is to inform them through an official. So once a scorer confirms to you a team has exhausted its alloted TOs, you have a duty to inform them.

When I coached, I had three rubber bands on the left wrist (full TOs) and two on the right wrist (30s, or 20s back in the day) and took one off each time I used one up.

Agreed.

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?

It's simple. Prior to the game starting, I tell the table to let us know only when a team gets into the bonus or double bonus, when a player has five fouls and when a team has used it's last timeout. Other than that, we don't want to know the status of any of those issues.