Can it be corrected administratively???
 

Team B has already received a delay of game warning earlier in the game. B1 has four fouls. Following a basket by Team B, Team A attempts a throw-in vs. Team B''s full court pressure with about 4 minutes remaining in the game. B1 -- who is Team B's leading scorer -- reaches through the plane while A1 is holding the ball for the throw-in, but does not touch the ball. The official recognizes the situation. Knowing that Team B has already received a delay of game warning, the official immediately assesses a technical foul.

However, rather than assessing a team technical foul, the official calls a technical foul on B1 -- which is B1's fifth foul resulting in a player disqualification. The official's partners wrongly assume that the calling official had observed the defending player make contact with the ball, therefore, they do not question the official at the time. The teams trade baskets over the next two minutes before Team A calls time-out.

The officials briefly gather near midcourt at the beginning of the time-out. During the brief discussion, the officials talk about the technical foul. At that point the officials realize that the technical foul should have been assessed as a team technical rather than against B1 individually.

Now the officials are faced with a decision. Can they correct a bookkeeping error and allow Team B's leading scorer to return? It is not a correctable error, but can this type of administrative error be corrected? Or is this error uncorrectable once play has resumed?

By rule, it's not a bookkeeping error. It's an official's error. The official erred in assessing the technical foul to B1 instead of to the team.

While I agree with the comment above, I see no reason to continue to enforce the incorrect penalty and would make the change to a team technical foul and allow B1 to participate further in the contest.

Also, this kind of irregularity would most likely warrant a phone call to the assignor and/or a report to the governing authority whether that be the league or state association. Team B may have grounds to protest the game, not per NFHS rules, but perhaps per the league or state.

The bottom line is to not make the situation worse once one has knowledge that the assessed penalty is incorrect. Do what you can to address it.

I don't think you have the rules backing to do that, Nevada, after the ball became live again. I agree philosophically but our personal feelings really don't mean squat. It's not a case of a bookkeeping error as listed under 2-11-11; it's an inadvertant setting aside of a rule by the calling official. Note that case book play 2.11.10SitB uses that terminology in it's RULING. You're not correcting an incorrect penalty; you're trying to correct a wrong call instead...after the fact. It's no different than making any wrong call and then trying to go back later and change that call. If you ask your partners at the half about a foul call that you made in the first quarter, and they tell you it was a horsesh!t call, are you going to go back and change it? And we already know we can't have a do-over if we give the wrong team the ball on a throw-in that has ended or other situations like that.

Methinks you just have to suck it up, admit your mistake, let the chips fall where they may and move on.

Thoughts?

+1

What I'm about to say in support of JR is for general consumption and not directed to any poster in particular.

Officials are human and make mistakes. The rules specify a time frame for correcting mistakes in order to have a fair procedure for all and to keep the game moving. (Actually, several time frames: one for throw-ins, one for "correctable errors," etc.)

The time frame is brief, which is an argument for getting the call right in the first place. We just don't have much time to fix it when we screw it up. If despite our best efforts we screw up and a player fouls out, well, those are the breaks. The player won't remember it in 5 days, much less 5 years.

What's worse is arbitrarily setting aside the rules because an individual official's sense of "fairness" is violated. That's usually what's going on when 2-3 is invoked: "I don't like this outcome, so I'm going to set aside the rules that dictate this outcome and deliver an outcome that I like better." That says the official is bigger than the game. And that's a route to a career doing MS games.

Interesting, I proposed a scenario before and got a similar answer from others that Nevada has given here.

Scrum, foul called and reported on White 24 when it should have been on Red 24. Ball given to white (confused young official). It's white 24's fifth foul. A couple minutes progress and the official, knowing something was wrong with that whole scenario, finally realizes what happened.

Assuming it's past the 2-10 time frame, can he fix this?

Assuming it's not past the 2-10 limit, can he fix it?

The answer I got was, basically, "get it right."

The 2-10 time frame has nothing to do with it.

As I said in my initial reply, by rule, it can't be changed.

If you make this mistake and decide to make it right, that's on you...your choice. Just answering from a rules standpoint that it's not correctable.

While I think that JR has a point, I don't believe that the call--which was a technical foul--was incorrect, it was simply that to whom the calling official charged that penalty was wrong.

What if I changed the situation to the official incorrectly charging a foul to 32 instead of 33 during the 4th quarter for whatever reason, perhaps he doesn't clearly see the number (perhaps 32 isn't even in the game at the time), and then two minutes later when 32 fouls again the official is informed that it is his fifth foul? If it can be proven that 32 didn't commit the first foul, maybe due to the scorer having a record of who was in the game at the time, is anyone going to insist that he remain stuck with it?
Or in this particular case, once it is realized that 32 was mistakenly charged with a personal foul which he shouldn't have been are people still going to DQ him?

To me, in both cases, it is not the actual foul call which is wrong as a rules infraction was committed and recognized by an official, but the assessment of that penalty was improper in that it was charged to the wrong offender.

While we certainly can't erase FTs, points, or a possession after a certain time period, I believe that we can correct the recipient of a foul once we have definite knowledge that it was incorrectly attached to a person. Some may cringe at this, but I believe that is a simple principle of basic fairness and while it could fall under 2-3 or the whole process of bookkeeping, I would offer that the rules support is more basic. The rules tell us very clearly to whom a foul gets charged. As officials we have a duty to adhere to that. If we screw up and don't, then I believe that we must do what we can under the rules address our mistake. Exactly what is allowable in this area is obviously up for debate, but I'm not going to knowingly DQ a player who should rightly be eligible to participate.

mb,
Let's say in my hypothetical situation that this had been an OHSAA State Final Game --likely to be remembered for more than five days. By book rule, there appears to be little that can be done, here. It is NOT one of the five correctable scoring errors (nor is it a throw-in team "error").

This, in my opinion, comes down to how will the officials handle it. REGARDLESS what is done, the officials have screwed the pooch with the initial call. The question is, are you, as an official, going to attempt to get creative and right your wrong or do you follow the rules from here on out (since obviously you failed to follow them when you assessed the individual technical foul). It is a stretch to call this a "bookkeeping" mistake as it was actually an official's mistake.

Since there are no protests permitted in OHSAA tournament play, the official's error here could likely play a major role in determining the State Champion.

The question here, can the officials get the player rightfully back into the game and follow the rules -- at least not break any of them -- at the same time.

Not under any rule that I am aware of.

Never call what you can't explain....or justify.

Coach A fails to list B32 on his roster. 2 minutes into the game B32 commits a foul. It is now discovered that B32 is not in the book. B32 is added and the officials assess an "indirect" technical against the HC and revoke his privilege to stand in the coaching box. At halftime the officials check the rulebook and realize they erred in assessing an "indirect" against the HC.

The officials are committed to the "indirect" and can't correct it?

What rule would you use to correct it?

If I'm the "R" I'm going to make it right and then take whatever heat comes my way from the assignor, rules backing or not.

"Sometimes you just have to referee!" -someone on this board

Not sure if anyone intercepted the calling official prior to reporting in the OP, if not, this is one of the many reasons why we should come together first & talk it out.