Granting a timeout

[Rich]

I had a strange timeout situation last night at the end of a 15 point game.

Team that was down 15 in the waning seconds was scrambling in the corner and the ball was loose on the floor. The coach was screaming "time out, time out, time out" and in the middle of this, as the ball was rolling out, the player from the team down 15 grabbed the ball as she was going out of bounds and rolled it back on the floor inbounds before landing out of bounds.

Good enough for me. I granted the timeout.

My partner (since I was administering the throw-in after reporting) ended up taking grief from the winning coach until the first horn. He ignored the statements and when there was finally a question, said, "Obviously Rich had player control or he wouldn't have granted the timeout." Then the coach said, "I know this is a 15-point game but if this was a 2-point game I'd really have something to argue about." Again, no response. I watched the whole thing from a distance. It was the only thing that coach said all night long.

It amazes me how coaches simply can't turn it off. I know I would've shrugged and said, "Big deal, we're up 15 with 6 seconds left in the game."