Hmmmmm. From "Basketball Rules Fundamentals" in the Fed rulebook, Fundamental #16:

"The official's whistle seldom causes the ball to become dead. (It is already dead.)" :D

Chuck

Goes to show what THEY know! :)

USBL this year?

Yup, Drake and a couple other guys convinced me to give it a go. Just got an email today confirming that Brooklyn is still in the league, so NY has 3 teams now.

Chuck

7/8/9 game nothing. Work about five girls' games (at any level) in a row and you'll be begging for the arrow.

Actually, I was wondering this year why the FED still mentions that a jump ends when the ball hits the backboard -- then it dawned on me that this is probably a holdover from the pre-AP days when balls were jumped at the FT line.

Rich

Actually,Rich,I think that they use that language to tell you when the restrictions listed in Rule 6-4 are supposed to end-i.e.when a touched ball contacts something in bounds other than one of the jumpers.

When this happens, I tell the coach, "new rule this year, Coach. You can only have five."

It usually gets a chuckle.

Hey! How about this? Give possession on a wedgie to whichever team can dislodge the ball first. This would be cool.

Great idea! But howzabout we limit participation to the coaches?

Sure, let us coaches get it
 

How much time you got til you have to be at you next game?

Mr. DeNucci,
I have been causing a small stir around here in the girls games that I have been doing. I don't know if I am the only one in the country who tells the girls that they can't have their heel lifted above the lane space divider. I don't know why girls do this, but it is clearly a violation. I tell almost every team that I see that they can't do this and I get the dumbest looks. The coach questions me saying "no other officials have a problem with this". I have never seen a male player do this. Is this only done in northern Minnesota or what? I haven't had to call a lane violation yet because they have just slid their foot over. Maybe a coach can tell me if this helps them get a quicker start toward blocking out or what the rationale is for this stance.

Girls also do that "sticking their arms out" thing. I gently remind them to keep their arms in their own "space", but the heel thing doesn't bother me too much. I've never seen how it could create an advantage. Unless she's got size 19 feet, she won't really be interfering too much with the player next to her.

I've been waiting for somebody else to bring this up. I agree with you that it is clearly a violation. I think it is just one of those things that everybody does because everybody else does it. I don't know just when it started, but it is quite common here (Louisiana) and, as you said, just a girls thing.

Maybe you should get out and see a good girls' game instead of making ignorant sexist remarks. I'll leave a pass for you at our game tonight.

Waaaah! Waaaah!

Turn your hypersensitivity knob down.

Any official here want to dispute that there are more alternating possession situations in a GIRLS game than in an equivalent level BOYS game, since that's all I said?

No thanks, I have a BOYS game tonight. GIRLS game tomorrow, so I'll tell you how many held balls I had in each, OK?

Rich