Time out or foul?

[chymechowder]

Had a situation in a JV G game tonight. Only the third HS game I've done. Not sure if I did this right:

After grabbing a defensive rebound A1 has the ball. B1 and B2 converge on her. I'm the new trail; the play is right in front of me.

A1 can't find an outlet pass. I hear a "time out!" from the bench behind me, but don't process it right away as coming from the coach. Immediately thereafter, and in bang-bang fashion, there's a second time out call as well as a foul by B2 on A1. My fist goes up for the foul--just as I realize that the coach had called timeout. (D'oh!)

I say "No foul. Time out Red."

Coach says, "It shouldn't be a timeout. You called a foul, right?"

I say, "Yes. But it was a split second after I registered your request for time. You had possession and you called for time. I should've granted the timeout first."

My partner came over and backed me up, saying that he had the time out, too.

She was reasonably ok with the explanation, but is that right? If it happens quickly enough, can we retroactively grant time and "wave off" a common foul or violation that occurs in the time it takes for the (admittedly green) official to process the TO request?

(And hypothetical: say the foul had been for someone throwing a punch. Would we still grant the time out, and then treat the punch as a dead ball technical?)

[just another ref]

Which did you recognize as happening first? That's the one you report. If you happen to make the wrong signal, as you did, it is not binding.

Yes, if the timeout has been granted, even if not as smoothly as you might have liked, the punch should be dealt with like any other dead ball infraction.

[mbyron]

This question opens something of a can of worms around here. My opinion is that "granting a time out" is a mental event that is subsequently signaled by hitting the whistle and stopping the clock. Hopefully, these events are nearly simultaneous, but there is necessarily some lag time.

So an official can grant a time out just before a foul, violation, held ball, etc. You did fine, and the coach should let it go once you've explained.

[jeffpea]

good job. grant the TO before the foul, because the TO happened before the foul.....it's just like calling the travel before the blocking foul or the illegal screen before the jump shooter was fouled...no different.

[Adam]

The way I read this, I'm likely going with the foul; especially if my fist goes up. You didn't recognize the request's validity until after the foul occurred, even if it was requested.

Not saying you did wrong, just that I may have done it differently.