Leaving Court Unauthorized

[RookieDude]

A fellow official asked me about a situation that happened during one of his games recently. I advised him what I would have done...but, told him I would get some "second" opinions from "experts" on this forum.

H.S. Boys J.V. Contest:
Team A has the ball in their front court. Player A1 sets a screen in the key and on the endline. Player B1 sees the screen and trys to avoid it by running on the out of bounds side of the endline. A1 sticks his arm out, in a "clothes line" manner, and catches B1 just under his chin knocking him down.
What do ya' got?

RD

[Nevadaref]

JV game, huh?
Well, if I am the lead, I call only the contact foul, which is either a common foul (illegal screen), an intentional personal foul, or a flagrant personal foul. It would depend on how severe I thought the contact/action was.
Given your description, I most likely call an intentional personal foul.
Now by rule, it seems that the play is a simultaneous foul. Even though one is technical and the other is personal. The kid who ran out of bounds gets a T for unauthorized leaving of the court and the kid who clothes-lined him gets the personal foul. I think this is a gap in the rules, too. 4-19-9 seems to only address the cases where both fouls are personal or both fouls are technical.
So if we straight by the book, a foul on each and no free throws, and the ball could be put in play by the AP arrow at either the endline or division line. I can't tell which place to do the throw-in since one foul was technical and the other was not.
I don't think this play is too far fetched, but I do think the ruling is very strange. Great question!
PS What if we have a foul occur by team A on the court and at the same time the coach of team B is screaming at the officials and is assessed a technical foul? Let's say that each foul is whistled simultaneously by different officials?

[RookieDude]

Originally posted by Nevadaref
JV game, huh?
Well, if I am the lead, I call only the contact foul, which is either a common foul (illegal screen), an intentional personal foul, or a flagrant personal foul. It would depend on how severe I thought the contact/action was.
Given your description, I most likely call an intentional personal foul.
Now by rule, it seems that the play is a simultaneous foul. Even though one is technical and the other is personal. The kid who ran out of bounds gets a T for unauthorized leaving of the court and the kid who clothes-lined him gets the personal foul. I think this is a gap in the rules, too. 4-19-9 seems to only address the cases where both fouls are personal or both fouls are technical.
So if we straight by the book, a foul on each and no free throws, and the ball could be put in play by the AP arrow at either the endline or division line. I can't tell which place to do the throw-in since one foul was technical and the other was not.
I don't think this play is too far fetched, but I do think the ruling is very strange. Great question!
PS What if we have a foul occur by team A on the court and at the same time the coach of team B is screaming at the officials and is assessed a technical foul? Let's say that each foul is whistled simultaneously by different officials?

False Double Foul...administer in the order they happened.(Get together with your partner...one happened before the other)
Coach was probably screaming because his player got fouled...soooooo
Team B shoots if they are in the bonus or the foul was a shooting foul....with clear lanes....then Team A shoots the "T"s...give the ball to Team A for a throw in at the division line opp. the table.

RD
I"ll get back to you on your reply to my question...

[Edited by RookieDude on Nov 10th, 2002 at 07:47 AM]

[Nevadaref]

RD,
I see your point, but don't quite agree with your characterizing either of these situations as false double fouls. Remember new rule defining simultaneous fouls says that the fouls by both teams occur "at approximately the same time" and that is what I think your friend's senario most closely resembles. My PS response was supposed to illustrate another example of a simultaneous foul situation in which one foul was technical and the another was personal. It was the only such situation I could come up with.
I think this could be a splitting hairs, but if we used your solution to my PS and my partner and I decided that the coach's T happened first, wouldn't we now have a dead ball, and hence ignore the foul by the player unless it is intentional or flagrant?
This is why I tried to make it clear that, for theoretical purposes as we probe these foul rules, the fouls happened too close together to tell which happened first.
We both know that in real life someone always fouls first when two fouls happen, but we do still call double fouls in games. Not everything is called a false double, right? The most common double fouls that I see are two post players both pushing and shoving for position (double personal) and two players having words or getting into a shoving match (double technical). If A pushes B and then B pushes A during a dead ball, the officials always call this a double T, I've never seen it called a false double T, even though it was obvious that one player shoved first and the other retaliated.
Do you agree with that?
PPS Look at what you answered to my pre-game tech situation when one team didn't have the starters marked and the other started the wrong players! You didn't make the case that one infraction happened before the other, you just said simultaneous techs!

[Edited by Nevadaref on Nov 10th, 2002 at 08:31 AM]

[JRutledge]

Unless the defensive or offensive player is so far out of bounds that not a single individual in the gym can tell what happen, that might be the only time that you should call a T. Other than that, leave this T alone. Just because the player is out of bounds does not warrant a T in my opinion. Penalize the screener for his actions. The screener's actions seems more obvious and if anything caused the defender to move the way he did. If you do it that way you will not have to worry about all the false doubles and simultaneous foul situations. Do not make this that difficult.

Peace

[firedoc]

Here is another point about this play. If the player went out of bounds intentionally and you decidde to call the "T" that is fine. If that happened before the contact foul then the ball is already dead. Therefore the contact foul should either be ignored or it is actually a technical foul. That would make this a false double technical foul.

[BktBallRef]

Originally posted by Nevadaref
RD,
I see your point, but don't quite agree with your characterizing either of these situations as false double fouls. Remember new rule defining simultaneous fouls says that the fouls by both teams occur "at approximately the same time" and that is what I think your friend's senario most closely resembles. My PS response was supposed to illustrate another example of a simultaneous foul situation in which one foul was technical and the another was personal. It was the only such situation I could come up with.
I think this could be a splitting hairs, but if we used your solution to my PS and my partner and I decided that the coach's T happened first, wouldn't we now have a dead ball, and hence ignore the foul by the player unless it is intentional or flagrant?
This is why I tried to make it clear that, for theoretical purposes as we probe these foul rules, the fouls happened too close together to tell which happened first.
We both know that in real life someone always fouls first when two fouls happen, but we do still call double fouls in games. Not everything is called a false double, right? The most common double fouls that I see are two post players both pushing and shoving for position (double personal) and two players having words or getting into a shoving match (double technical). If A pushes B and then B pushes A during a dead ball, the officials always call this a double T, I've never seen it called a false double T, even though it was obvious that one player shoved first and the other retaliated.
Do you agree with that?

You can have simultaneous technical fouls and you can have simultaneous personal fouls. You cannot have simultaneous fouls that are comprised of a technical and a personal. Also, it can't be a double foul, since at least one attribute of a double foul is missing. And that is the definition of a false double foul.

Also, you're correct that you can't call both unless you call the T for going OOB first and then call the second foul as a technical foul that is either flagrant or intentional.

Now, to answer the question, I would have a personal foul on A1. I would not call the T for going OOB unless the player had previously done this during the game and been warned about it.

There's no need to look for things to call.

Originally posted by firedoc
That would make this a false double technical foul.

There's no such thing as a false double technical foul. If a T was called on a player and then before the clock started, another T was called, it would simply be a false double foul.

If called the way you describe and the way I described above, I would probably rule this as simultaneous technical fouls. I think it meets the criteria.

[RookieDude]

Well, back to work on the ol' night shift tonight and I see there has been some very good comments on this thread today.
Thank you for your responses.

Just to clarify Nevadaref, when I stated False Doulble Foul, I was talking about your PS sitch not my original sitch. But, you made some very good points.

This is what I advised my fellow official of how I would have handled the out of bounds runner and the foul by the screener:

No call on the player running out of bounds (since there was no whistle before the contact by the screener)

Intentional Personal foul on the screener for clothes-lining the player running beside the endline out of bounds.

I also stated that if he wanted to get "technical"...no pun intended...the official could have called a "T" for the player leaving the court, thus creating a dead ball situation. Then the subsequent "clothes-line" would have to be ruled as an Intentional Technical foul since it was during a dead ball.
This would then be Simultaneous Techs...no shots...go to the arrow for the throw in at the division line opposite the table. (Some might say that the throw in would be at the endline because of the Intentional foul, but Simultaneous Techs are handled differently.)

I think that is basically what BsktBallRef stated...which makes me feel good since he is one of those "experts" whom I was looking for an opinion from. ....whew, stand back, it's getting deep now...

RD

[Nevadaref]

RD,
Yes, it has been a good discussion with many people making some good points. Personally, I have enjoyed this forum and think the people who respond on it are quite knowledgeable. Thanks to all.
That being said, I have been persuaded by your arguments that your friend's play is a simultaneous technical foul situation.
Two things really make it clear for me, so I will share them:
1. We all seem to agree that simultaneous fouls cannot be one technical and one personal. They must be either both technical or both personal.
2. I remembered my fundamentals. Page 73 Basketball Rules Fundamentals #16 The official's whistle seldom causes the ball to become dead (it is already dead).

Therefore, whether the officials blows the whistle before or after the player is clothes-lined, the ball is already dead. (It became dead when the player ran out-of-bounds, thus committing a technical foul. I suppose it must be unsporting behavior to leave the court for an unauthorized reason, and that is why this is a technical foul even though it happens during a live ball!) So we now know that the contact foul is a dead ball foul and is a technical foul. Clearly, we all feel that the contact was excessive and thus meets the definition of an intentional foul and should be called during the dead ball. Since, these fouls happened "at approximately the same time" they are simultaneous Ts.

Now to RD, I also think you are correct that my PS situation is a false double foul even though I was trying to make them simulataneous fouls. The reasons are similar to above. 1. simul fouls cannot be one of each (T and P).
2. It does really matter when the whistles blow as the ball becomes dead with the first foul.

I agree with your reasoning that the coach is yelling because he wants a foul called so it is easy to say that actually happened first.
Finally, that means in my PS play, we do shoot free throws and then give the ball to the team whose coach was not charged with the T for throw-in at the division line.

Lastly, I'm glad to see that we all would have called the play the same way in real life (ignore the OOB and only call the intentional), despite the rules discussion that is only useful for a test question.

Again thanks to all. It has been thought-provoking.

[A Pennsylvania Coach]

Nobody is going to toss the kid who clotheslined another right under the chin? If that isn't flagrant, what is?

[bard]

Originally posted by A Pennsylvania Coach
Nobody is going to toss the kid who clotheslined another right under the chin? If that isn't flagrant, what is?

I'd have to see it PA Coach. If it was vicious, he's gone. If it just looked like a bone-headed reaction with no real force behind it, personal foul.

[Tim C]

In 40 years of watching, coaching and officiating basketball I have NEVER seen a technical foul called for a player illegally leaving the court.

I have read this entire thread and decided this logic would be forced to used in all games:

If a technical foul is called for the player leaving the court to avoid a screen then all officials would need to call technicals on players that say, try to save an errant pass and jump into the crowd.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

It would certainly appear to be OOO to call a technical for a player avoiding contact by leaving the floor as described.

Please set me straight.

[mick]

Originally posted by Tim C



If a technical foul is called for the player leaving the court to avoid a screen then all officials would need to call technicals on players that say, try to save an errant pass and jump into the crowd.

Tim C,
Following the rules is rarely being an OOO.

Going out of bounds to save a ball and going out of bounds to avoid a screen are different scenarios and both are covered in one set of books, unlike baseball where opinions, practice and experts vary with more frequency.

mick

[gsf23]

I can't ever remember seeing a T called for unauthorized leaving of the court. And I don't think that it would be warranted in this case either. I would like to know what would be an unauthorized reason? I've seen it said here that running out to save a ball is okay, but running around a screen is not. Where is the line drawn on this rule? I would think that the purpose of this rule is to avoid deception on one team over another. I remember seeing a play on TV where a kid ran out of bounds and through a set of doors on the left side of the court, ran down a hall and came in through another set of doors on the right side of the court. To me, that would be when the rule would be used, not for trying to avoid a screen.

[Tim C]

Mick:

I appreciate the humor but the question still lingers:

"Would you call a "T" for a player leaving the court illegally when attempting to get around a screen?"

I really need to know . . . again, history DOES NOT make this a normal practice.