Restrictions on Huddle?
 

Over the holidays I worked a local high school tournament so we are dealing with Fed rules.

During a 30 second time out the players, bench dwellers and coaches were huddled on the court. One of the officials approached the huddle and told the coach that only the headcoach and the 5 players could be huddled on the court in front of the bench. I know that there is a restriction in football regarding huddle participants on the field based upon location of the huddle, but I had never heard, seen nor read such regarding basketball. I went through the books today and couldn't find anything to back up that official's statement. Am I missing something?

Scuba_ref:

NFHS R5-S12-A5 and R1-S13-A3 are the relevant rules that you need to look at. There is not restriction as to the number of player or assistant coachs (including team managers, trainers, statiticians, doctors, priests, nuns, lawyers, and who everelse you can think of) in the huddle. R1-S13-A3 defines the TO area.

MTD. Sr.

The restriction that may be causing some confusion is that the 5 players may not sit down on the bench. Not letting them sit has no bearing on whether the other player may or may not stand and join in the huddle (they may).

That sounds spooky.

It's also possible that the official got confused by the procedure on replacing a DQ player. Here, the HC can confer with the 5 players on the court, but the rest of the bench, including ACs cannot stand.

Does anyone run into a coach that has his players sit during a 30 second time out? There is no penalty if they do...

There is if they refuse to stand after being told to do so. Charge the head coach with a direct "T": under R10-4 for failing to comply with specific instructions from an official to follow a plainly written rule. It's an unsporting act.

I agree with JR.

Same as the team using the entire (or wrong half) of the floor during warmups when the other team goes in -- direct the coach to follow the rule and if he doesn't take care of it, well, we have a rule covering that, don't we? (And I recognize that other states may not be dealing with this at all, but this was covered in our rules presentation. Not the penalty, but this seems pretty obvious to me.)

Have to say, though, that I don't really pay attention to how a team uses its timeout as long as they are in the right area and are ready to go on the second horn.

+1

Same here. It was brought up at an association meeting last year as a crew had some difficulties with this from an area coaching staff.

I don't particularly like this Rich, and here's why. The difference between sitting and standing for 30 seconds, although minute, offers the players a different type and quality of rest. I do think the timeouts are different and are to be administered differently in this aspect and as officials we should.

Exactly. I couldn't care less as long as they're ready to play.

Seems to me that when 20 second timeouts were intro'd, there was an interp that said only players and the coach could stand. But my memory isn't what it used to be. :)

Finished it for ya.....:)

Specifically allowed now for all bench personnel during all TO's under R10-4-4(c).

I hope I never get that old that my memory goes like that......:D

Rip Van Billy Mac Winkle ???
 

Just exactly when were twenty second timeouts intoduced?