Messed One Up Tonight!!!!
 

BV game. Team B hits a three point shot to go up three with 3 seconds left. Three person crew. Team A calls timeout. I am the old lead coming to new trail. I administer the throw in. Ball is caught by A1. A1 takes two dribles and launches a three point attempt and is knocked to the floor. Old trail, new lead calls foul. Clock reads 0.0, packed gym and I believe the horn has sounded. After calming Team B coach and players down, A1 steps to free throw line to shoot 3 shots with no one lined up on the lane. Hits the first two and misses the third. I am the R on the crew. Myself and the lead begin to head off the floor and the teams begin to head toward the handshake. The C blows his whistle and beckons us back to the floor. I look up and see 0.9 on the clock. The C tells me there was 0.9 on the clock at the time of the foul and he has no doubt about it. I pull the crew away from the teams and we discuss it and he says he is positive there are 0.9 seconds left and that is why he didn't leave the floor and he instructed the timer to add the time. As you can imagine, the team B coach goes crazy!!!! The team A coach wants A1 to get another shot because no one was lined up and wants a violation on B. I tell both coaches we are not going to reshoot any of the free throws because it is not a correctable error situation and A1 shot all three of his merited free throws. I know we are in deep yogurt at this point. The arrow is in favor of team B and we award team B a throw in on the endline because we had a missed free throw and no one played it believing the game was over. B1 throws the pass and, wouldn't you know it, hits a speaker near the ceiling trying to throw it the length of the floor. Team A inbounds and gets a clean shot off that goes in and out and since the basketball gods were with us, team B wins. A total crew screw up from many angles I know, and, as the R, I take that responsibility! Trust me, this situation will never happen again. Myself, the lead, and both teams thought time had expired and the game was over after the miss. Imagine my shock when the C blew his whistle and called us back out. Besides the obvious of get together after the foul call and sort everything out, time, shooter, # of shots, etc., once we screwed the pooch, is there any other way we could've handled this? What would you have done? I am just glad it was a high school game and not a college game...:mad:

I have nothing to quote to back this up, but I think when the last free throw clanked, the game was over. It was too late at this point to put any time back on the clock.

I'm mostly interested to know what you plan to do to make sure this sort of thing doesn't occur again. Secondly, I would've paid good money to be a fly on the wall when you spoke to the C after the game. :) Care to repeat any of that speech?

Timer errors can be corrected at any time, but this is a new one. Who instructed the timer to put .9 back on? Did he do it on his own?

Isn't the game only officially over once all officials leave the visual confines of the court? I believe any scoring/clock error can be corrected as long as one of the officials remains.

Besides having the C inform both officials about adding time back on the court, I think the situation was handled correctly. You can't re-shoot the last free throw and there is no correctable error because Team A shot all merited free throws. You have to use the AP because the ball became dead with neither team in control and no goal, infraction nor end of quarter/extra period was involved (since your C added time back on the clock). All and all a messy situation, but I think you handled it as best as possible.

But, according to two out of the three officials, the end of the quarter was involved. This is not a correctable error, and by rule I see no way to proceed from here.

2-3 or game over.

It's not a vote.

While the C should of done a better job of communicating his definite knowledge of a timing error, I believe since he did have knowledge of the error, and since all three officials did not leave the confines of the court, the game is not over and the error can be corrected.

C screwed this by rule

2-5 ART. 5 . . . Decide matters upon which the timer and scorer disagree and
correct obvious timing errors.

When did he reset the clock? and how did he do it? There was a foul so he should not have been near the table as the new lead called the foul and would have gone table side. No one noticed he went to the table? I think I would have yanked him off the floor .... If he did not come to the crew before the shots the crew most likely did it right...


I think this is where BEFORE you shoot the shots that the crew has to get together and get it right... I have a foul.. Did we hear the horn? Is the clock right? Once you have that figured out you can shoot your shots. Take your time --- getting this right is the only thing that matters..

That was not the point. The game was proceeding as if time was out. If this is the case, when the last free throw missed, the quarter/game was over. For one official, after watching the free throws with no players on the lane, to then say, "By the way, there was some time left," bring us to an undocumented point, does it not? What if he had said there should have been .9 more in the third quarter?

Obviously, it's too late to go back to the third quarter and fix it. If, however, the C knew for sure time should go back up, then time should go back up. It's not as if you're in the OT and someone wants to fix it.

I agree, you as referee cannot let the C add time on to the clock without your approval. You saw 0:00 as did the other official. Unless you have some other absolute proof, game is over and C doesn't get to take shower until hot water has run out.

I am curious about where this shot was taken. 3 seconds.....length of the floor to go.......two dribbles and launches........lead makes the call?

So where do we draw the line? Seriously.

I don't know about you, but if my partner is absolutely adamant that he saw time on the clock, I'd more than likely add time on the clock

Certainly I would do so also, if he told me before the foul shots.

If the shot would have went in I'm sure team B coach would have given you a nice hearty handshake after the game. ;)

timing is everything when it comes to time
 

To put time back on the clock after allowing free throws at the end of the game with nobody on the lane is preposterous. If the issue of adding time to the clock after free throws have been shot with no players on the lane is not directly covered by the rules. It therefore becomes a ruling that the R is entitled/required to make. The appropriate ruling would be that once the third free throw was shot with nobody in the first lane spaces as required by rule when the ball is to become live after the final shot in a series, the statute of limitations on putting time back on the clock had ended. If the foul had been called with time on the clock, the clock would have restarted after the third shot was missed or after the throw-in after it was made, so that becomes the point of no return. Therefore, to put time on the clock after the third shot was attempted is the equivalent of adding time to the clock after a throw-in. You can't do it.

The C came dangerously close to causing an overtime, for which he ought to be drawn and quartered.

Which is it? Is it a 2-3 issue, or has the statute of limitations expired?

It is covered by rule. If the official has definite knowledge that time has not expired, by rule we put time back on the clock. There is nothing in the rule book that says we can't put time back on the clock in this case. Since, there is no rule prohibiting it and since there is a rule that says if we have definite knowledge we can put time on the clock, then we do so.

This is an opinion not supported by rule. You can't use the "God" rule to fix this. You put time back on the clock and go from there. You can't penalize the non-shooting team for having no one lined up on the lane because the officials ordered the lane to be cleared. They were following the officials instructions.

The C messed up big time. He should not have put time back on the clock without notifying the crew. By rule only the R can, but in my area we normally pre-game that any official can. The C should have realized something was wrong when no one was lining for the rebound.

On this note, how does everyone handle a situation where they have definite knowledge of a timing mistake? Do they go specifically to the R and have the R inform the table of the mistake, or does the official with the knowledge take care of business himself (informing partners of course)?

In games I have done, after informing my partners, I will go to the table and correct the timing mistake myself regardless of whether I'm the R or U1/U2.

Walter, only thing I'm interested in knowing is what was the C's explanation for allowing the free throws to be shot with the lane cleared if he knew time should have been on the clock?

At the very least.....
 

You should be holding up play to go talk to the table. So your crew at that point should know something is up. Then you can tell your crew what you did. However, I do believe it is better to inform the crew before you add time to the clock. This should be pre-gamed and if the R doesn't mind you putting time on the clock and then notifying after the fact, then so be it. Whatever the R wants to do, I'm going to do it his way.

Exactly!
 

He should have known something was wrong when no one was lining up for the rebound! Furthermore, he should have held up play while talking to the table. The crew at that point should have seen him address the table and known something was up. Failing to do that he should have at least held up the free throws and got with the crew to inform him of what he did.

The C had no good explanation as to why he did not inform us of his knowledge. He said he didn't realize we didn't know until he realized we were headed out of dodge. He had instructed the timer to put the .9 up as we were headed back to the floor to meet him. When he told us what he had, and after that OH S@#$ moment, I needed to process what we were going to do about it and quickly. That's where it was decided we weren't re-shooting any free throws and we were going to the arrow. After the game in the locker room, C's explanation was that he was caught off guard by the foul call and subsequent reaction by B's coach and bench that he lost focus. When we proceeded to shoot the free throws, he said he was focusing on the benches and players to decide whether a "T" might be needed given team B's reaction to the entire situation. Thank God he didn't do that!!! It wasn't until after the thrid free throw and myself and our third leaving that he looked up and saw that the clock was at 0.0 and he knew he saw 0.9 at the time of the call. Now, I did give thought to going with timer reaction time and ending the game but I know that was removed AND he was adamant that he saw 0.9 on the clock. He had clock responsibility.

As to what I intend to do in the future to prevent it, if I have a similar situation, before we shoot any free throws, I will get my crew together and go over exactly what we have and how we are going to handle it (i.e. foul before the horn confirmation, how much time do we have left, players lined up or not, etc.). Obviously, this was a crew error caused by failure to communicate by one member of said crew. As I said before, at least the basketball gods were smiling upon us and team B won the game. If they hadn't, the coach of team B may have ended up in the locker room looking to kill us!