I was observing a game last night preceeding the game I officiated. A couple of situations came up which got me thinking about how I would have called the situations.

Question 1: I know this should be easy but I can't seem to find the correct rule. When a player is at the free throw line at what point has the thrower violated for stepping over the line? If the thrower steps over the line while bouncing the ball in preparation to shoot is it a violation or are they allowed to place their foot behind the line and still attempt the throw?

Question 2: Team A has a throw in from their frontcourt. A1 inbounds to A2. A2 has control in the front court. He mistakenly thinks the basket in his backcourt is his goal. A2 dribbles in for an uncontested layup in the opponents basket. Team A takes the ball out and play continues. The officials did not make a call (perhaps their judgement was A2 didn't have control in the frontcourt-who knows). If the officials recognized that an error was made in not calling the backcourt violation could they cancel the score as listed in the correctable errors section or is this not a correctable error?

<b>Question 1: When a player is at the free throw line at what point has the thrower violated for stepping over the line? If the thrower steps over the line while bouncing the ball in preparation to shoot is it a violation or are they allowed to place their foot behind the line and still attempt the throw? </b>

Your reference is 9-1-7. The player violates when the foot goes over the line. (For elementary games, I like to give a warning, if possible.) The violation occurs when the foot crosses the plane. (Not that the foot does not technically have to touch the floor on the other side of the line.

<b>Question 2: Team A has a throw in from their frontcourt. A1 inbounds to A2. A2 has control in the front court. He mistakenly thinks the basket in his backcourt is his goal. A2 dribbles in for an uncontested layup in the opponents basket. Team A takes the ball out and play continues. The officials did not make a call (perhaps their judgement was A2 didn't have control in the frontcourt-who knows). If the officials recognized that an error was made in not calling the backcourt violation could they cancel the score as listed in the correctable errors section or is this not a correctable error?</b>

There are better people to answer correctable error questions than me, but of course the basket should never have counted, as the ball would have become dead with A2's backcourt violation. However, I would translate 2-10-1-e, <i>erroneously counting or canceling a score</i>, as applying in this situation, and therefore cancel the score.

The real veterans on this board will be able to answer this one better than me!

Question 1: Answer Rule 9.1.7 After the ball is placed at the disposal of a free thrower.... shall not have either foot beyond the vertical plane of the edge of the free-throw line which is farther from the basket....

Question 2: Answer Yes, I think this should be corrected with Rule 2.10.1e. Call the back court violation, take away the points, and give the ball to Team B for throw-in.

Sometimes the stupid things just catch you off-guard and your whistle becomes lost or non-functional.

I agree with you on Play #1 but I'm not so sure I agree with you on Play #2. I don't believe this is a correctable error as defined by rule. If an offical mistakes a 3-pt. try for a 2-pt. try or vice versa, or if a basket is made right before or after a foul is called then you could rerroneously count or cancel a score. But if you simply miss a backcourt violation you can't wipe out a score and go back and penalize the violation. What if a player traveled on a drive to the hoop and the official missed the travel. Would you then go back and take away the basket and penalize the travel. I could be wrong but I don't think the correctable rules apply here.

Situation #2 is not correctable, in my opinion. The error that occured was not the counting of the score; after all, a live ball passed through the basket. The error was in not calling a violation prior to that. If the officials don't notice it until after A has inbounded the ball after the score, I don't think you can go back and call the violation.

Chuck

Mr. Elias is correct,as usual.The covering rules reference is R4-5-4.

You're not gonna start being nice to me, now, are ya JR? Wouldn't want you to go and break that rotten streak!
http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/hippy.gif
As Terrance Mann said in Field of Dreams: Peace, love, dope!

<font size = - 4>Just so no one gets upset, I'm not endorsing or condoning illegal herbs. I was just trying to come up with a hippy quote. </font>

[Edited by ChuckElias on Nov 13th, 2002 at 01:48 PM]

Thanks, Chuck. I knew I could count on one of the elder statesmen to set me straight!

Agreed.

1- When his foot breaks the plane, prior to the ball hitting the rim or backboard.

2- Not correctable.

Peace and love to you too,Dope!

-from the kindlier,gentler JR.

Before this season is out, JR will be shot. We'll have to wait until next season to see who shot JR. Will it be Chuck? Or will it be someone else?

Could be Chuck, could be anyone of many people who do old
Alfred....errr....JR in. But it doesn't matter, it will
turn out to be just a dream anyway.

Before this season is out, JR will be shot. We'll have to wait until next season to see who shot JR. Will it be Chuck? Or will it be someone else? [/B][/QUOTE]"What,me worry?":D

Just make sure you put the points on the board for the correct team!

I think this is very well put. This brings to mind a new question, not about correcting errors but about making a call. When is it too late? In this particular case, the player takes off in the wrong direction, acting like he knows what he is doing. It is understandable not to realize the mistake at first. Suppose you realize the deal as he passes the top of the key, is that too late? As he goes up for the shot, is that too late? Once we had principal pressed into service as an official in her school's 9-12 league. She said, "It's like I'm deer hunting. I'm aiming the gun, and aiming the gun, but by the time I'm sure what I want to shoot at, the deer is gone." I say when in doubt go ahead and pull the trigger.
Better very late than obviously very wrong.

Timing
 

Originally, I didn't finish reading question #2 before I made my answer - didn't realize Team A had taken the ball out and continued after scoring in Team B's basket . Given some of the responses though, I now have some additional questions.

BBREF seemed very confident that this was not correctable. At what time did it become not correctable - once the throw-in had been made? Can someone explain the timing of 2.10.3?

JR says the covering rule is 4.5.4. So do the points get credited to Team A? I don't think this is the proper rule unless both teams were confused and play proceded for an extended period of time with both teams scoring and committing fouls etc. In this particular case Team A recognised their error, apparently took the ball out after scoring in Team B's basket, and then proceded to the proper end of the court.

I'm thinking that 2.10 is applicable. The rule inadvertently set aside was the back court violation which resulted in an erroneous score. The ball became dead after the shot was made in the wrong basket. The ball became live (1st live ball after the error) when Team A proceded with their throw-in. I'm thinking this is still correctable at this point - remove points from Team B's total and administer a throw-in for Team B at the division line.

If Team A continues and scores, the ball becomes dead and live again with Team B's throw-in (2nd live ball since the error). Now it is too late to correct - Team B keeps their points, Team A keeps their points, and play continues as normal.

Somebody correct me where I am wrong.... BBRef, Tony, where is the error in my thought process?

Obviously, the best solution is never allow a correctable error situation to develop. Your justification is going to seem flimsy in the end. As for how late can your whistle be... for this situation I would say, philosophically, you are too late once Team A has administered their throw-in and is headed to the right end of the court. But you are going to have to do something if a coach starts howling at you for a correctable error.

In general, your whistle can be as late as...., until something else has happened. But I think it really depends a tremendous amount upon your personal clout. Some officials could likely be a couple seconds late on a call and still sell it well enough that everyone agrees the correct call was made; others couldn't sell a late call to their own grandmother.

Personally, I wouldn't care how late it was, if I could avoid a correctable error situation.

Re: Timing
 

It never was correctible, because it's not a "rule set aside" it's a call not made. Big difference.

No, team B. A live ball through B's basket is two points for B.

Explain the big difference.

A rule being set aside or screwed up would be if we called a multiple foul (God forbid) on B3 and B4 on A5's made basket, and then only awarded A5 one free throw - we just set aside a rule...(I know - we're never gonna call a mult. foul!!)

A call not being made is when A5 goes up, gets slapped by B4, still gets shot off and makes it, and we don't call anything...we're not going to wait until after B inbounds the ball, blow our whistle and say "Wait, we have a correctable error situation here. I should have called that foul."

The officials screwed up by not calling the over-and-back, and the player screwed up by scoring 2 points for their opponent...A gets the ball for the throw-in and we continue on our merry way...it isn't correctable...

Tony,
I am going to give you an analogous situation to hopefully help clarify that this play is not a 2-10 correctable error.

A1 dribbles in for a try. He is fouled by B1 in the act of shooting. The covering official is screened out and cannot see the foul. The shot is missed. Team B rebounds the miss and goes the other end and scores. Team A takes time-out during this dead ball. Now since the coach of team A is screaming at the official who missed the foul, the officials come together for a conference. The covering official on the play asks his partner if he saw a foul. The partner responds, "Yes, but I did not want to call in your primary. I did not know you were screened out."

Now in this senario, we have a rule inadvertently set aside (foul rule) which results in the failure to award merited free throws, since it was a foul in the act of shooting.
Is it a 2-10 correctable error? We are still in the time frame to correct it.

Obviously, not. No one would consider this situation a correctable error.
Therefore, whether the officials fail to call a violation or a foul, it is not correctable. The distinction that you are looking for lies in the enforcement of the rules. If the official fails to call BI by the offense and the basket goes in, counting this score is not considered erroneous and it is not correctable. However, it the official calls the BI and counts the score anyway, then an error has been made in the ENFORCEMENT of a rule and the situation is correctable.
Simply put, correctable errors occur when the officials do or fail to do something in enforcing the penalty after a call is made, not after a call is not made.
Except for judging a 2 or a 3, but that is covered by the casebook 2.10.1F
Hopefully this helps clarify things.
My vote is that "by the book" it is too late to call the backcourt after the ball has gone through the basket. Now in real life, on the court, we may fudge this a bit and possibly wipe out the goal if the following throw-in has not been completed.
I just thought of the recent rule 10.1.8
Read this casebook play and then remember that before it was written this basket was not considered correctable. Once the throw-in preceding it was touched in bounds, "by the book" we had to let play continue and then let the following cheap basket count. Hence this casebook play.
The point is that, by rule, we couldn't cancel this basket if we caught the mistake before the following throw-in was completed. It was too late once the goal was scored. But many of us wiped it out anyway!

ENFORCEMENT of a rule
 

Ah Ha!

A correctable error results from improper enforcement of a penalty. Very good thank-you. And this is why Situation #2 is not a correctable error.

Re: ENFORCEMENT of a rule
 

Well, not necessarily, but if it helps you see the light, okay. On most correctable errors for free throws, it is probably the result of improper enforcement of a penalty. But for erroneously counting or canceling a score, there wouldn't necessarily be an improper penalty enforcement.

Correctable Errors
 

Here is how I remember if it is "Correctable or Not"...
Rule 2-10
Art. 1...Officials may correct an error if a rule is inadvertently set aside and results in:
a. Failure to award a merited free throw.
b. Awarding an unmerited free throw.
c. Permitting a wrong player to attempt a free throw.
d. Attempting a free throw at the wrong basket.
e. Erroneously counting or canceling a score.

Notice there are only 5 correctable error situations and 4 of them have to do with free throws.
Just get the "recognized by an official during the first dead ball after the clock has properly started" or "before the second live ball."
The big thing to remember...4 of the 5 have to do with FTs.

RD