Inadvertant Horn - Bus Tossing Rant

[CDurham]

Last night - GJV ball. Partner under basket with team A throw-in. I'm T. Inbound pass is thrown and A2 completely misses her attempt to catch. Ball bounces and is rising towards A3 making an attempt to retrieve it. As she is doing this the horn sounds from table. A3 hesitates and looks at table. Ball passes her and goes OOB near division line. No one touched ball. I whistled and sent ball back to endline to partner for throw-in Team B.

Coach team A furious - wants ball back to A at POI. Then, as soon as he finishes yelling this - says B should get ball at division line. Since ball was untouched and horn does not stop play we gave the ball to B at endline for throw-in. At half - varsity officials in stands told us we got it wrong. Ball to team A at POI. Later heard that they were tossing us under the bus for the call to team A fans when 2nd half was beginning.

Had a somewhat similar play the other week. Player A is dribbling up the court, the horn sounds, and he throws the ball in my direction. The defense was still playing defense on the dribbler and on other offensive players. I let the ball go OOB and awarded it to Team B.

Of course the bench and the player was a little upset, but I told him the horn doesnt stop play automatically. If both teams would have stopped playing their positions I would have stopped play with the whistle, but only the dribbler seemed to process the horn and proceeded to throw the ball OOB.

[Juulie Downs]

No one has yet answered the question: What if you whistle just after the horn sounds before the ball is clearly OOB? I mean, if it's a play where there's no definite thing happening, and the horn sounds, and all the players just quit playing, I will whistle and then give the ball as POI (after reprimanding the table gently). So in the OP, if you see that A3 is very close to the ball, and then stops trying when the horn sounds, why not blow it dead before it gets to the OOB point and just give it back POI? Of course, once you don't whistle, I see that it's a turnover.