Camp lesson: Violation/timout simultaneously

[Richard Ogg]

Here is another valuable lesson from my attendance at "Between the Lines" camp this summer. First, the game situation: Games are 20-minute halves, running clock, high school varsity boys. It is late in the first half, and blue has just scored 4 unanswered points to pull to within 6. 8 players and my partner (2-man) are trotting down the court, while I watch the ensuing inbound. (I'm including information identified by tape analysis in the scenario. Be sure to catch what we knew and what we did not know at the time of the play. )

A1 is still a full step from the endline when he "inbounds" the ball to A2, who takes off down court. A1 continues toward OOB, but I blow my whistle to call the illegal inbound play. My partner does NOT hear my whistle.

The coach of white sees the illegal inbound (or hears my whistle) and requests a timeout to chew some butt. My partner, who has no clue of the violation at my end, cracks his whistle and grants the timeout. (Remember this is all bang-bang within a second or two.)

After I signal the inbound violation, I turn to look up court and see players running to their benches, and my partner starting to report the timeout. I did NOT hear his whistle.

Partner and I meet in the middle of the court and discover we have no clue, nor any independent information that would lead us to know which occured first, the violation or the timeout. He (R) decides arbitrarily that the timeout was first, so it will be white's inbound under blue's basket after the timeout.

After the timeout I announce the simultaneous calls and that we have ruled that the timeout was first, and it will be white's ball. Now the coach of blue just spent the timeout planning their inbound play where they intend to draw to within 4 points of white. He is livid! He is yelling "You are wrong!" and comes clear to the paint in his emotion. At that point, I reward him with a technical foul for refusing to get off the court. We now learn that we got the call wrong (from tournament director - unbiased) but it no longer matters, as white will shoot 2 for the T and take the ball at midcourt. What could have been a 4 point lead is now 10 points.

The obvious lesson is court awareness and never missing your partner's whistle -- no need to spend time discussing that. The real issue is how do you handle the situation after you've gotten yourself into the mess. You have no independent information to resolve the ambiguity -- what do you do?

The college official working as our evaluator knew the proceedure for dealing with this, but I don't want to spoil the fun of everyone taking their shot out how they would escape alive. I'll share his resolution next week....

[This message has been edited by Richard Ogg (edited July 26, 2000).]