True or False.

1. Team B players are wearing headbands which are actually bandannas that are rolled up and tied in back. Bandannas are rolled such that they are no wider than 2" and are of a single solid color and are the same for all teammates. They are legal.

False from rules book 3-5-3-5.

Please provide rules/case # if different.

2. During stoppage of play, several subs report for both teams. B2 goes to bench believing he/she was substitued for. Ball becomes live and team B only has four (4) players on court. Team B advancing ball up into frontcourt and Team B coach realizes B2 should be on the court. At coaches request, B2 sprints directly onto court without reporting or being beckened. Technical foul on B2.

True from case book 10.2.1 situation B.

Please provide rules/case # if different.

3. B3's shoelaces untied. Play will not be stopped to allow the laces to be tied. Officials may delay resumption of play on dead ball to allow B3 to tie laces.

True but don't have rules or case #'s to reference.

Thanks for the help.

Yuck. Actually, rule 3-5 exception 2 says they're legal, but it states "headband." I guess you'd have to determine if this is in fact a "headband." If it's a JV level game (or higher), I'd have them removed. I've let lots of younger kids (mainly girls) play with what are in effect bandanas.

Correct. Read case 10.3.4C

Correct. The key word here is "may." Again, if this is a JV game or higher, I'm not going to blow my whistle for a kid to tie a shoe. Younger kids - yes, older kids - ought to know how to tie a shoe. ;)

The correct answer to this question is FALSE.

Prior to the 1963-64 season, officials could stop the game or withold the ball from becoming live so that a player could tie his/her shoe. This changed with the 1963-64 season. The National Basketball Committee of the United States and Canada (NBCUSC), the predecessor to the NFHS and NCAA Men'/Women's Rules Committees, deleted a section in Rule 2 that had previously allowed officials to stop the game or withold the ball from becoming live so that a player could tie his/her shoe. The Rules Committee made the deletion and made note of the deletion through an Editorial Comment to the Rules. The Editorial Comment specifically stated the the section was deleted so as to not allow the officials from stopping the game or witholding the ball from play so that a player could tie his/her shoe.

I have just ordered my 2002-04 NFHS Basketball Handbook, so I can only direct you Part 1, Page 13, Year 1963 of the 2000-02 Edition of the Handbook for this rules reference.

When the NBCUSC morphed into the NFHS and NCAA Rules Committees, in 1978-79 (if my memory is correct) all applicable Casebook rulings applied unless changed in the future. Therefore the 1963-64 rule change is still in effect for both NFHS and NCAA Men's/Women's Rules.

Mark- I am going to disagree with you on the answer being False. As stated by DANVRAPP The key word is MAY. That is what makes it a true statement. Just my humble Opinion

AK ref SE

With all due respect, it is your right to disagree, but the Editorial Comment was quite specific: the officials could NOT stop the game or keep the ball from becoming live to allow a player to tie his/her shoes. The Rules Committee's intent is that if a player wants the game to be stopped so that he/she may tie his/her shoes, his/her team must request a team timeout and the time request must be granted. There is nothing in the rules that preclude a player from tieing his/her shoes while the game is being played. The Rules Committees do not consider an untied shoe a safety issue. Each and every player should be able to tie his/her shoes in such a manner that they do not come untied during the game.

Maybe the official is not supposed to withhold the ball for a player to tie his shoes, but if a player has an untied lace while I'm holding the ball, I might notice a wet spot on it and get a towel to dry it off.

Chuck

Rub those balls

Team B scores to cut the lead to two points with less that five seconds left in the game. B1 shoe is untied and you stop the game to dry floor so that B1 can tie his shoes.

Or, Team A is up by two with five seconds left in the game and A1 is on the line for a 1+1. Team B has no timeouts left in order to freeze A1. B1 shoe is untied and you stop the game to dry floor so that B1 can tie his shoes.

The Rules Committee in its Editorial Comment address such plays and wanted these types of delays eliminated.

You'll notice Chuck said "I might".

That aside, in the first case there's no reason to stop the game. In the second case there's no reason to NOT let B1 tie his shoes. And there's no reason to find a nonexistent
wet spot on the floor, or the ball. Just don't bounce the
ball to A1 until B1 is done. It falls under the heading of "common courtesy". IMO.

I love it when you try to twist things, Mark. You're getting to be as bad as Rut.

Chuck didn't say anything about stopping the game. The original post discussed resumption of play. no one said anything about stopping the clock to allow the player to tie his shoe. There's nothing wrong with allowing a player to tie his shoe prior to a throw-in.

You need to use a little common sense.

player mistakenly sits on bench
 

Speaking about the kid who thought he was substituted for and went to the bench without a replacement entering, thus leaving his team with only four--I would like to point out some specifics.
1. Although the casebook 10.3.4C states that the technical foul is "for returning during playing action" this is not really the correct reason. Nowhere in the rules is this action listed as illegal. Consider a player who dives off the court and saves a ball from going out of bounds. The player ends up in the fourth row of the stands and it takes him a few seconds to return to the floor. Meanwhile the play is still going on as the ball never became dead. He certainly may return during playing action without penalty!
The correct reason for the T in this situation is leaving the court for an unauthorized reason as stated in 10-3-4.
So we are penalizing his LEAVING, not his returning.
2. This T is charged to the player. He was not legally replaced and so is not bench personnel, thus it is not charged indirectly to the head coach as well. Please note: there is also not an indirect T on the coach if a sub fails to report or enters without being beckoned, nor is the coach penalized if the team has more than five participating. Why this is so, I can't justify. In fact, in the instance with 6 on the court the T is not even charged to a team member! It is just a team foul. This is important as the coach does not lose his coaching box for these infractions and we all know how much they hate that.
3. The movie Hoosiers is incorrect when Hackman benches his player and finishes the game with four. A team must play with 5 if they have 5 available. (not fouled out, injured, etc.)
4. When the official notices that a team only has four and should have 5 players, he should stop the game right then (unless the other team is scoring, why negate that?) and assess the T. Don't wait for the next dead ball.
5. This rule is there to stop trick plays. For example, a player runs out a side door, down the hall, and back in another door on the other side of the court to get open for a shot. I guess they don't want players hiding on the bench and then coming back in for a cheap layup either.
Under the rules there is no discretion for the officials here, but game management skills might dictate otherwise.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Re: player mistakenly sits on bench
 

I agree -- don't negate the scoring opportunity.

But, then why negate the following defensive opportunity, or the scoring opportunity after that, or ....

If A mistakenly goes to the bench, then s/he stays there until the next opportunity to substitute. If A needs to call a TO (or intentionally throw the ball out of bounds, or trabvel, or ...) to make that happen, so be it.

Exactly!! :D As long as you're not delaying the game :rolleyes:

[Edited by ChuckElias on Nov 7th, 2002 at 08:21 AM]

I guess I can you give the benefit of the doubt here, Mark. But TH is right, I never said that I would stop the game. By "while I'm holding the ball", I assumed that I would be holding it b/c of a dead ball, with the clock already stopped. But I didn't say that explicitly. Just to ease your mind, if I can, let me just say that I would NOT stop the clock for the sole purpose of allowing a player to tie his shoe. However, if the clock is already stopped at a non-critical time of the game, I would probably hold it for an extra 15 seconds so the player could tie his shoe.

Chuck

The reason that don't make the player wait 'til the next opp. to sub is that a team MUST have five players barring injury or DQ. 3-1-1
The rationale for not stopping the layup by Team A to penalize Team B for only having 4 is that you don't also want to penalize Team A when they have done nothing wrong. See Casebook play 10.4.1C
So in short if A has no immediate advantageous situation other than B only having 4 players, you stop the game right away and give the T.

Unlaced
 

An untied shoe could very easily be seen as a safety issue.

Common courtesy is to allow this player time to tie his shoe during a period of inactivity.... I wouldn't remove a scoring opportunity.... I would however, take my first opportunity to protect the player from having someone step on his lace and having him end up head-long into the floor.

Is this wrong or beyond my authority?

Chuck, I apologize, as I read your post I missed the word "might." When one gets old and senile like I am, one misses some words sometimes.

MTD, Sr.

Read my original post again, I addressed the situation of not allowing the ball to become live while the player tied his/her shoe, that is a resumption of play situation.

Lets look at a play similar to my one just above in this posting. Lets change Team B score from a field goal to a free throw. Everybody knows that Team B will try to set up a press and that Team A will try to inbounds the ball quickly before Team B can set up its press defense. Are you going to not allow Team A from inbounding the ball so that B1 can tie his/her shoe, thus giving Team B time to set up its press defense. This is exactly what the Rules Committee did not want the officials to do when it changed the rules in 1963-64.

Its not a matter of common courtesy. The Rules Committee changed the rules so that Team B could not benefit from the actions of B1. If B1 wants to tie his/her shoes, that is his/her perogative, but A1 has the right to shoot his/her free throws in a timely manner and not be frozen by the official who is showing a common courtesy that the Rules Committee specifically prohibits.

Re: Unlaced
 

A player for making sure his shoes are properly tied and must take care of an untied shoe without delaying or stopping the game. This is what the Rules Committee was saying when it made its change in the rules back in 1963-64. And one cannot compare it with glasses or contacts which the rules specifically addresses.

The people who play in the games I ref take no more than 5
seconds or so to bend down & tie a shoe. If one of these
people looks at me & points to his shoe I will not refuse
him the 5 seconds. If before I bounce the ball I notice
someone bending down I'll wait. If I've already bounced
the ball and notice someone bending down I'll blow the
whistle & take the ball back. Common courtesy, but you're
one of the self named "rules gurus" around here, why don't
you post a reference that says "thou shall not delay the
game to let a player tie his shoe before administering a
free throw". As for this notion of "freezing", IMO this
is a mostly overblown notion put forth by sports announcers who need something wise to say during dead periods in the game.

About 2 seasons ago, I did a 5th/6th grade game to help out a local church league. A buddy of mine assigns it and we work for free. Anyway, these kids could not keep their shoes tied. It seemed like every time we blew the whistle, somebody bent over to re-tie his shoes. I was getting very frustrated by the delays. So at halftime, my partner and I discussed it and we told both coaches that we were treating shoelaces the same as shirts not being tucked in. We were just going to send the kid to the bench and have him fix it there. We sent one kid off in the second half and didn't have another problem.

Chuck

Chuck, great solution.

Go to my first post in this thread. I explained how the Rules Committee changed the rule starting with the 1963-64 season.

That's it, huh? Maybe I'll get me one of them handbooks
and look at it, but I tend to doubt it reads as you relate
it here. Got something a little more convincing?

That's it, huh? Maybe I'll get me one of them handbooks
and look at it, but I tend to doubt it reads as you relate
it here. Got something a little more convincing? [/B][/QUOTE]


Read the Editorial Comments to the Rules for 1963-64. My intention is not to give you a flip answer, but you can read it in either the NFHS or NCAA copy of the 1963-64 Rules Book. The reference in the NFHS Basketball Handbook does not go into detail like the Editorial Comments did in 1963-64, plus I have had discussions with officials in both the USA and Canada who were officiating in 1963-64 and my comments are based upon both my reading the Editorial Comments as well as these discussions with officials who were officiating in 1963-64.

Editorial comments and the game has changed since 1963-64. I look at editorial comments and POE as a yearly thing. In 1962 some team must have used the shoe tieing strategy to create an advantage....So the next year it became a Editorial comment. In my game I MAY allow a player to tie is shoe during a deadball situation. What I do will depend on the level I am calling. So my opinion to the original question. I am going to stick with TRUE for an answer. The official MAY allow a player to tie his/her shoe!

AK ref SE

Prior to the 1963-64 season there was a section in Rule 2 that specifically allowed the officials to stop the game or withold the ball from being made live so that a player could tie his/her shoe. Starting with the 1963-64 season, the section allowing the officials to do this was deleted from the rules and the Rules Committee stated their reason for this deletion in its Editorial Comments (which I have written about previously). The Rules Committee deleted the section with the specific intent to take away the officials ability to stop the game or withold the ball from being made live so that a player could tie his/her shoe. Therefore an official cannot do what you propose because the rules prohibit it.

Maybe it is the wording.....I am not going to stop a play. If the ball is dead and a player is tying his/her shoe, I am going to hold the ball for a couple extra seconds. I have seen this at all levels of play.... HS, College, Pro.
The next time a college game is on ESPN.....I bet some player will be tying his/her shoe and the official will wait. 3 seconds is in the rule book...We or I will say I as an official do not call that rule to the letter of the law. Just my opinion

AK ref SE

Thanks for the reference Mark. Next time I work a game in 1963 I'll certainly keep this in mind. Now that it's
d@mn near 2003 what you suggest falls under the heading of
irritant. Bottom line: don't stop the clock to let someone
tie his shoe. Otherwise, as the road construction sign sez,
give 'em a break.

None of us will ever officiate a game in 1963, but the Rules Committee made a rule change in 1963 and until the Rules Committee changes the rule, the orginal rule change is still in effect. If you do not like the rule, petition the Rules Committee, to make a change. Remember a Supreme Court ruling made in 1863 is still in effect until a law is passed that renders the ruling moot. In the case of the 1963 rule change the Rules Committees have never rendered a rule change that changes its decision in 1963.

This is too silly to comment on.

Dan,

You may think my response is silly but the fact is the Rules Committee spoke in 1963 and has never changed the rule. If you don't like the rule, write to the Rules Committees, and suggest a change.

I think that the rule change made in 1963 was a good rule change.

[/B][/QUOTE]Bottom line: don't stop the clock to let someone
tie his shoe. Otherwise, as the road construction sign sez,
give 'em a break. [/B][/QUOTE]Exactly!That's the way everyone in the world calls it,except for one guy in Bowling Green,Ohio.

Btw,I did games in '63.I don't remember shoe-tying really being a major issue.

[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Nov 8th, 2002 at 01:39 AM]

According to the schedules that came out back in 2006, you and I are scheduled to work a game in 1963.

I'll pick you up in 1945 and we can ride in separate machines together.

Bob

(A seminar on time travel will be held last Thursday).

That was very clever, Bob. I liked it! :)

It's also, I think, not strictly true. A Supreme Court ruling is not over-ridden by a legislative measure, is it? The only way to take a Supreme Court ruling out of effect is for the Supreme Court to re-consider its previous ruling or to go through the process of amending the U.S. Constitution. I suppose another alternative would be to hold a constitutional convention, but I honestly don't know what the effect of that would be.

Chuck

Not exactly. A Supreme Court ruling INTERPRETING THE CONSTITUTION cannot be overridden by legislation (though Congress has on very rare occaisons found a way to do an endrun that effectively does so -- alas I cannot think of an example right now). The Supreme Court regularly interprets statutes (and occaisonally agency rules), and Congress (or the agency) is free to revise those statutes (or rules) to "change," the Supreme Court decision. . . . Also, on rare occaisons, lower courts have essentially said that a Supreme Court decision was "stale" and no longer good law even though it was never actually reversed by the Supreme Court. But this is very rare and requires very old opinions that have been ignored by the Supreme Court since they were issued.

This last point is very interesting, hawk. Thanks for pointing it out. Can you think of an example? I'm no constitutional scholar, by any stretch. I'm working from my memories of 8th grade American Gov't class :)

As for the first point about "changing" a Supreme Court decision, I don't think that's a fair description. Congress may revise parts of a law that have been found to be unconstitutional. But that is changing the law, not the high court's decision. They are simply making the law constitutional; they are not enforcing the law despite it's unconstitutional status. Right?

Chuck

I can't think of an example -- I remember running into a situation several years ago where a lower court essentially dismissed a Supreme Court opinion as stale where the opinion had never been relied on again for the point and didn't make a lot of sense. (I can think of a potential future example: the Supreme Court said it was OK to intern the Japanese during the war; although that case has never been reversed, it has been so thoroughly condemned that I would imagine many lower courts would feel free to ignore it.) On the other point, you are right -- they are not changing or overruling the decision, per se, but they are modifying the law to get the result that they want. (Of course, if you read the newspaper, you will read that they Congress overruled the decision.) Where it usually happens is where a Court interprets a statute to mean something, and the legislature amends the statute. (In California, the legislature will try to get closer to overruling its Supreme Court, and pass laws that say the statute means such and such, and always meant such and such.)

Law and Editorial Comments-

There are still laws on the books in many states and towns that have never been taken off the books....that are still there, but because of the changing times they are never called into question. Some were back in the horse and buggy day( I was not around) and I did not call Basketball back in 1963- Did not even know how to tie my shoes back them.

So Editorial Comments from previous years if they wanted them enforced as they were 40 years ago...they would be in the rules...or the rule book should have an appendix with every years Editorial Comments.

AK ref SE

Chuck,

Your comments explain the point I was trying to make in a much clearer manner that I did. Thank you.

MTD, Sr.

You are missing the point. Prior to the 1963-64 season, the rules stated specificially that the game officials could stop the game or withhold the ball from being made live so that a player could tie his/her shoes. Starting with the 1963-64 season that provision was deliberately deleted from the rules by the Rules Committee because the Rules Committee did not want the officials to stop the game or withhold the ball from being made live. The Rules Committee's Editorial Comment gave the reason for deleting the provision from the rules. The provision was not deleted just to make the Rules Book shorter but to change the rules.

Your argument that the deletion was made forty years ago is not defensible. Currently, it is a violation to goaltend a free throw. If the violation is by B1 at an Team A's basket, the penalty is to award a point to Team A, charge B1 with a technical foul, and award Team A two free throws plus the possession of the ball for a throw-in after the free throws at the division line opposite the scorer's table. Using your logic, if the Rules Committee decided to delete the technical foul penalty provision from the rules, and used an Editorial Comment to bring the deletion of the provision to everybody's attention, but then never never made a comment in subsequent Rules Books, forty years from now, an offical could charge a player with a technical foul for goaltending a free throw because the Rules Committee hasn't commented on it in the past forty years.

Shoe laces (cont)
 

I had the original post on shoe laces and I would today, in the year 2002, allow a player to tie his shoes while the ball is dead, repeat while the ball is dead. It could become a safety issue if not tied and what's the harm, the ball's dead at the time?

Why can't he tie them before the game starts--or maybe there never were tied/tied properly......that's his probem!

Re: Shoe laces (cont)
 

The harm is that the Rules Committee amended the rules with the specific purpose of prohibiting game officials from stopping the game so that a player can tie his/her shoes. To delay making the ball live so that a player can tie his/her shoe is the same as granting their team an uncharged timeout. The Rules Committee wanted to prevent officials from granting a team uncharged timeout so that a player could tie his/her shoe.

Furthermore, an untied shoe is not a safety issue. A player can kneel down and tie his/her shoe anytime the player desires.

You hit the nail right on its head.