Announcer count down
 

Had a quirky situation in a game last night.

BV, at a brand new school and gym. There were wet paint signs on the wall and a strong varnish smell in the gym. (I blame any missed calls on the fumes!). The scoreboard got fried during installation and didn't work. So they had a small portable scoreboard sitting on the score table. Since it was their very first game in their new building the place was PACKED. Unsurprisingly, it was nearly impossible to hear the portable scoreboard horn. Nor could the scoreboard be read from anywhere along the table side sideline except directly in front of the table.

Near the end of the third quarter, the home team had the ball in their front court and the announcer began counting down the last few seconds. During the intermission the visiting team coach insisted that the announcer was not allowed to do that. We agreed to disagree, but the V HC was not happy (he felt the announcer was giving the home team an unfair advantage).

I'm not aware of any rule that prohibits the announcer from counting down the last few seconds. I'm not aware of any ruling from the state prohibiting it either. Have I missed anything?

Given the situation, I feel it was very helpful and I wish I had thought of it before the game. I would have asked him to do it for each quarter.

One additional kink: when it became obvious hearing the horn was a problem, the AD hooked up the console for the main scoreboard because its horn still worked. That helped. But there was a definite lag between the "official" horn and the main scoreboard horn at the end of each period. My partner and I were aware of it and did our best to position T in front of the table to listen for the "official" horn. In retrospect, to avoid any potential controversy we probably should have pulled the HCs together, explained the problem and told them we would still determine the end of period from the portable scoreboard horn. Fortunately it never became an issue.

Kinda reminds me of 4A Regionals back in 2009, only in our case the scoreboard decided to fritz out all together & completely freeze up. We initially used iPods/iPhones for timing devices with the announcer doing countdowns the last ten seconds of the shot clock/game time.

A portable scoreboard was brought in that could only be seen by those on the court, & we (everyone involved in game management) agreed to allow the announcer to continue the 10-sec. countdowns.

There is no rule afaik but if the announcer had not done the exact same thing at the end of the first or second quarters (especially if the visitors had the ball on one of those occassions), I'd say the visiting coach had a valid point. Not much you could do though imo except maybe tell the announcer that he now had to count down the last few seconds of the fourth quarter no matter who had the ball.

If the announcer had a microphone, why not hold that in front of the horn?

+1 And it would prevent him from announcing who the foul was on prior to it being reported.:D

Yep.

I've done this a few times when shot clocks have gone out.

Did you have the announcer go "BAAAAAAAA" when the shot clock expired? :D

The mechanic wasn't done in Q1, so it doesn't happen for the rest of the game. That it happened in Q3, I would give a very stern warning and not permit it in Q4.

mbyron has a great idea.

I would notify the coaches that because of the horn issue, failing mbyron's suggestion, I would grant a higher authority to the timer to rule on last-second shots.

Even if the visiting team was holding the ball for the last shot in the 4th. quarter?

It can't get any higher than the Referee.

+1, why not make the fourth Q the same as the 3rd to make it fair.

Or if the announcer is going to announce it, let him announce at the 15 second mark - fifteeen seconds left in quarter. This would seem fair to both sides as a possession could change in those 15 seconds but folks would know time is short.

I agree with using the horn at the microphone though.

Ooooh, I like that. Although the microphone was a wee bit of a sore spot that night. Among the kinks they were working out was the sound system. And pre-game, there was a LOT of feedback/squealing from the mic. So if putting the mic by the horn didn't help, having the announcer put the mic in front of the speakers would definitely have done the trick!

BTW, the band for this game was not your typical high school pep band. It was two electric guitars and a drum set. When we came out near the end of half time, the starting point guard was jamming. That boy can play! :)

Did you do a l'il break dancing for the crowd? A few spinaroonis?

Basketball, guitar or both?:D