You have the same gray area in other calls such as palming, whether a kick is intentional , whether a foul is intentional or flagrant in nature, what comprises unsporting behavior, etc. They're all judgment calls...including when a player with the ball lying on the court rolls over. The rules back us on all of the preceding, tenuous though they may be. We just call them using our best judgment while trying to be consistent. And as for coach complaining, 26 year gap & Snaqs gave you the correct answer on that one imo.

Sometimes you just have to call the game.

Not really; there's judgment every time on virtually every call.

My point earlier was there isn't any practical way to make this particular call more black and white.

Oh, I don't think there's any question that this area could be written far more clearly.

For example, to use a variation of 4-44-5b, an additional definition of travelling could read, "after gaining control while on the floor and lying on his/her back or torso, may not roll to his/her side." (or vice versa, side to back/torso)

Mind you, I'm not saying the line should be drawn where I wrote it. It just needs to be drawn somewhere, so we're all on the same page. Yes, there's judgment in most everything we do, but at least there are clearly written bases for our judgments. It's these words that help keep us consistent.

And you would have no problem defining when the player was "on his side" as opposed to almost "on his side"?

The clarification in both the NFHS and NCAA case books say that it's a violation for a player on the floor holding the ball to roll over. It doesn't say it's a violation for them to roll to their side. And if you're not sure what "over" means, ask your rules interpreter. Well, that might not be good advice for bainsey.....

Paralysis through analysis.

I agree. OVER is the key word. To me from one side to the other does not constitute OVER. I need to see the torso flip.

This is certainly a gray area, but I feel that too many officials over-penalize the hustling player with a violation here. Reward the kid who gets to the ball first and allow him to make a play.

So we let the kid roll over on his side to get away from the defender who's trying to get the ball? Yep, makes sense, let's penalize the defender. :rolleyes:


Traveling every time for me.

So if a player secures a loose ball lying flat on his back and lifts his left shoulder blade and left butt cheek off the floor to pass to a teammate, that is "rolling over" and you're going to call a travel?

I'm with Nevada on this one.

I believe this illustrates my point.

Seriously? That's what you get from that post? Wow.

I'm just doing what people do on this board all the time: Infer things from a post that the author may or may not have meant.

In all seriousness, I don't agree with how BktBallRef interprets this rule. I believe "roll over" means to roll over to your other side, whether it be your front or back. If I'm on my back with the ball and I end up on my side momentarily to pass to a teammate or request a timeout, I would consider that a "lean" or a "twist", not a "roll over".

If a player shifts form one stable position to a different stable position, they have rolled over. I consider stable positions to be back, stomach, right side, and left side. If they're in between, the get to settle to one of the stable positions. But once they settle, I do not permit them to change. That doesn't mean they can't rock around as they continue to "play", but they can't change to a "new" position.

I consider back and stomach to be the stable positions. Afaik the intent and purpose of the rule is that it's a violation to roll over from one position to the other while holding the ball. That's rolling over. I've never seen or heard of an interpretation anywhere that said it's illegal to roll side to side while you're holding the ball on either your back or stomach.

Sounds like the only way to really settle this one is to get a FED clarification on it.

90 Degrees, 180 Degrees, 360 Degrees ???
 

Don't make me whip out my protractor.