Calling a Girls varsity game tonight and I ran into this situation. A1 is in the frontcourt directly in front of her coach (3rd quarter) she passes it to A2 who is 2 feet from the half court line in the front court. B1 who is defending A2 tips the pass (it was a relatively hard pass) and it changes the direction of the pass. A2 had her hands ready for the ball but since the direction of the ball changed due to the tip she can not catch the pass (not enough time to adjust to the change of direction) and the ball hits the bottom of her hand after being tipped by B1 and goes backcourt. B1 and A2 hustle after the ball and A2 recovers the ball in the backcourt and returns into the front court. Should this have been a backcourt?

Team A had control in the front court-last touched by a Team A player before going into the back court-first touched by a Team A player in back court = violation.

Yes. Ugly as it may seem, it's a BC violation.

It just seems like a bad rule to charge team A with backcourt when they had no chance to catch the ball because of team B deflecting the ball.

Reward good defense
 

B1 hustled deflected the ball, A2 could not adjust.

Easy call. No guilty feelings on my behalf.

The play by B1 is good defense. You're penalizing the defense if you don't make the call.

That depends on which player touched the ball first after it went into the backcourt. You stated that A2 recovered the ball after both players hustled for it, but you didn't explicitly tell us if B1 hit the ball or not during this joint hustle for the ball.
If B1 touched the ball first in the backcourt and then A1 got control, there was no violation. If A2 was the first to touch, you missed a violation.

[Edited by nevadaref on Dec 11th, 2002 at 07:50 AM]

Ben, if we were talking about an OOB boundary line, instead of the midcourt line, would you feel that it was a bad rule to call the ball OOB off of A and award the ball to B? She touched it last. Oh well.

Chuck

You all make valid points, and I guess that you are rewarding the defense for a good play. Well then let me take this point in a slightly different direction. A1 has the ball directly in front of the halfcourt stripe again, only this time as they dribble the ball B1 reaches out and knocks the ball away (going for the steal) and as the ball goes into the backcourt it goes off of A1's hip (A1 having touched it last now). The ball is now clearly in the backcourt, is A1's only option here to touch it and turn it over? Ben

No. He may foul B1. :D

It's not the official explanation (and may not be right in every situation), but one that helped me understand the rule is to envision that once the ball is in the front court, the midcourt line is an OOB line for the offense, but not the defense until the defense gains control of the ball.

The "four points" idea that's been quote in this forum many times has helped me immensely:

Team A has control
Ball has front court status
Team A last to touch in frontcourt
Team A first to touch in backcourt

equals backcourt violation. Note that Team A does not have to have possession in the front court! For example, A1 in the backcourt passes towards A2, who is also in the backcourt. A3, who is in the frontcourt, reaches into the backcourt and grazes the ball as it goes by. As soon as A2 touches the ball, backcourt violation.

Actually, Lotto, Team A doesn't even have to touch the ball in their frontcourt in some wacky situations.
If you are going to use this four points system, then you must be precise. Your third part needs to read "Team A last to touch before backcourt."
The reason for this is the second part of the backcourt rule. 9-9-2 Example, A1 is holding the ball in his backcourt near the division line, when he spins the ball forward. It hits the floor in the frontcourt and due to the spin, rebounds back to A1 who has not moved. When A1 catches the ball that is a backcourt violation.

I'm a little confused here...we have an official calling a VARSITY game who doesn't know or understand the over-and-back rule??? I know everyone makes mistakes and misses things - especially me - but to not know the rule and be calling varsity level games??? Am I the only one who has a problem with that??

What rules? None of the senior varsity guys out here know them either. They believe that they should work the varsity games because they have 15 years with the association. Who cares if they can't pass the test?
We had a fight in a game last year and they screwed it up so badly that the teams had to replay the game. The officials gave one team 10 free throws and the other 8.