Soph girls tonight. V-team is losing by 40+ in the 4Q when coach sends in 3 subs during a free throw sich. 3 subs come in, 4 girls go to the bench, leaving 4 on the court. Partner and I both see it, but decide to let the situation play out.
After H-1 makes both free throws, V coach realizes the problem and sends V-5 running onto the court while V-1 is bringing the ball up the court.
Partner blows his whistle, and comes over and we discuss the situation. Partner calls a T for sub entering without reporting. Coach argues that she was not subbing, since she had not been subbed for.
My thought is that, in that case, it's a T on the player for leaving the court unauthorized. She'd been sitting on the bench until the coach realized what was going on.
I was inclined to let it go, but my partner was right. Thoughts?

its not a T for leaving the court unauthorized because she left during a dead ball when subs were entering. if you had 5 and came back with 4 like you said, it was a T when she came in, as your partner did, a substitution T foul for entering while not being beckoned. Its a situation that is highly preventable by counting to make sure you have 10 authorized players on the court at all times. but, as you say it happened, the coach couldve avoided the T if she had waited till the next dead ball, or if he got possession, to call a TO.

We did see it happening, and I keep thinking we should have prevented it from happening. My first instinct was to let her come back without incident since the game was way out of hand.

Egads,

V's down by 40, and your P wants to stop the game, whack them with a T, shoot free throws, and extend the agony.

Let it go, let it go, let it go.

You are right, a quick glance could have prevented it, but in a blowout it's easy to make this kind of slip. All the more reason to just play on IMO.

but ina blowout, once i wouldve seen her coming on. just blow your whistle bring her in, and pray for the final horn to come...but i was only telling you what to do by rule. goid knows we bend them and its really all in the spirit of the game no to call the T in that case.

Pray for the final horn...you bet!

Not even sure I'd blow the whistle, though. The extra player slipped onto the court smoothly, no need to stop the game, I think. V team likely already feels stupid enough.

I don't think that it really was the best idea for either of you to "decide to let the situation play out",as you acknowledged above. You or your partner shoulda fixed this then,instead of waiting for the doo-doo to hit the fan.Once you let it go,it's so obvious that you have to call it though.It's a T on the player under Rule 10-2. Casebook plays !0.2.1SitB(b) and 10.2.2 both cover it,too. The "spirit and intent" of the rule also says that it should be called.The rule was never intended to allow subs to run on and off the court when they want to.

[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Feb 5th, 2003 at 03:37 AM]

I get to agree with JR here. I'm waiting for the team to get 5 on the floor. I'll even joke to the coach that there's a new rule this year, you get to play with 5 now!

JR
 

Me too, why would an official allow something to happen that they admittedly saw? . . . I would have stopped play and corrected the issue.

I was taught here in the last 30 days about playing with 4 so there is NO way the correct decision would be to "allow" something illegal to occur.

Bad move.

I would have a beef. . .
 

with a crew that saw this and chose to ignore it. I had this happen with one extra staying on, and the refs made the ball live then immediately called the T, indicating that they knew what they were doing when they made the ball live. What was the point? I still don't know two years later!

Manage the game, and communicate with the bench. This is a dead ball! You don't have to make it live until you get the subs right. There is nothing good that comes from letting this play out, in any game. Since this was a blowout, by doing so you ended up in a far more ridiculous situation and extended your game a bit while trying to figure out how to handle it and administering a T. But in a close game, would you really want to let an extra player leave, or stay, without just fixing it then and there?

Get this right so the game can be played correctly on the court.

I agree that we handled it poorly, and should have prevented it before it got to be a situation. I was curious that my partner, who was the trail on the free throw (and IMO in a better position to address it) didn't do so. I should not have agreed, and should have stepped in. The good news is that it's a lesson learned.
Thanks,

snaqs

When I used to play back in the day we did this all the time..... O, wait a minute, I played Hockey when I was in school. We called it changing on the fly!
Seriously, I'm glad you learned from your mistake and hopefully, others did as well. You definitely shouldn't have let the situation "play out". Anytime you have multiple subs you should be counting the players before putting the ball in play.

I don't think any of the "play on" opinions here believe in ignoring obvious violations in a close game.

The point I, and others had (I believe), was that in a 40+ point Soph girls game, where the bungled sub doesn't affect play, why stop, issue a T, and make it even tougher on the team who's getting their butts kicked.

Obviously, if it's tied, the situation changes. This is just plain common sense.

Let 'em play on. Then kick yourself HARD about 3-4 times for resuming play with only 9 players.

canuck
With your reference to close games, I thought maybe my post was mis-understood. What I was referring to was fixing the initial problem before making the ball live, in a close game or a blow out. In no circumstance do you want to knowingly make the ball live with the wrong number of players on the court (and before you jump in with exceptions folks, I know that 4 is the right number when you run out of subs :) ).

Once the ball becomes live, your hands are kind of tied, although I also agree with "not noticing" the player that returns to the court in a 40 point blowout. BUt if you screwed up and made it live with only 4 on the ocurt in a close game, and now the 5th runs on with the ball in play, gotta call it.