Shot Clock Reset
 

NCAA-Men. Conference championship game under 1 minute.

A1 shoots from elbow and is blocked by B1. The ball comes down about half way between shooter and basket. B2 grabs the ball, kicks it out to the wing who takes the the ball out top to set up a new play because the shot clock has been reset!

Coach B going nuts. The trail blows the play dead and goes to the replay with the R. They review the video and determine 2 seconds on the shot clock. They put the ball on the endline to resume play.

A couple of things:

1. None of the crew saw the shot not hit the basket/ rim.

2. Shame on the table for resetting shot clock.

3. If no one saw the shot clock reset how can you blow the play dead to see what the coach is yelling about?

4. The tv replay showed the shot clock was reset somewhere between 9 and 11 seconds. But the officials reset the shot clock to 2 because that is where the game was when they blew the whistle.

5. The ball was almost at half court when the play was blown dead. Why put the ball in play under the basket? That was where the ball was when the shot clock was reset- but then the shot clock should be at 9-11 seconds?

Good table help is hard to find!!!

What game?
 

Do you remember what game this was? It would help to see video.

I remember seeing the play in question on TV but don't remember who was playing...the announcers thought they were going to put 8-9 seconds back on the shot clock and were shocked when they put 2 seconds back on the clock. The team went on to get a lay-up on the throw-in on a great out of bounds play.

Found it. It was the Summit League championship (Western Illinois and S. Dakota State).

The shot-clock was reset to the proper time. The possession began with 2:39 remaining. They blew the whistle to recognize the shot-clock error with 2:06 remaining. If anything, Western Illinois should've had three seconds to shoot but no more than that.

As for where they put the ball back into play, they made a mistake. The whistle to recognize the shot-clock problem was blown with the ball between the circles, closer to the scorers' table. It should have been a designated spot throw-in in front of the scorers' table since that was the POI.

Yes they did...what they didn't see, and what took them by surprise, is that the shot clock was reset.

As for the rest of the situation, I believe they handled it correctly except for the throw-in spot. Once they were aware of the shot clock - because B's Coach was screaming - they stopped play and fixed things.

Am I missing something? A1 shoots, B2 grabs the ball. The shot clock should be reset.

The ball didn't hit the rim.

Not that he's my client, but I believe he meant A2 grabs the rebound.

A bit of a hijack but also related....

Does anyball that hits the rim reset the shot clock. A1 attempts an entry pass into A2, ball is deflected by defender B2, it hits the rim and is collected by A3.

Correct to reset the shot clock?

NBA: Anytime the ball hits the rim of the team in possession of the ball, the shot clock resets

NCAA: I believe it has to be a try.

The rule states the ball must leave the shooter's hand before the expiration of time, and the try does not subsequently strike the ring or flange, or enter the basket.

Agreed. The officials did what they were allowed to do, and that's go to the monitor, determine that ball did not hit the rim, then fixed the shot clock to what it should have been at the stoppage if it had not been improperly reset.

There is also a case play (A.R. 153) where, if the officials had waited another 4-5 seconds to discover the error, then checked the monitor, they would have to declare the shot clock violation, put time back on the clock to where the shot clock violation occured, and B would get the ball.

NCAA - yes, it has to be a try. 4-63 - Shot Clock "A shot clock is one of the two official visable timepieces that display the amount of time the team in control has to release a try for a field goal so that it hits the ring or flange."

correct. in NCAA-M, if a pass/deflected ball hits the rim, by rule, the shot clock does not reset. (that's a rule that should be changed btw....)

Just wondering why you think that rule should be changed???

Do you think that a pass that is deflected by the defense and hits the rim and is grabbed by the offense again should somehow reward the offense by giving them more time? I don't get what you are thinking here...

I watched the game....there was NEVER an issue of whether the shot hit the rim or not. The issue\mistake that the table made was resetting the shot clock because the shot clock operater mistakenly judged that the the defense had gained possession, then lost it (they actually never had possession) during a "scramble" for the ball. This table crew was plenty "good"--just made a mistake...and that mistake was mostly corrected. No different than the mistake by the officiating crew by putting the ball in play at the wrong sopt. By the way, the team, WIU, ended up scoring immediately on the inbounds play.

it should be changed for two reasons:

1) we are relying on the judgement (and rules knowledge) of the shot clock operator to determine what is and is not a shot. (that usually doesn't work so well and causes more problems than we all would like). the shot clock operator should only have to decide: "did the ball hit the rim or not" rather than "did it hit the rim or not?...it did? was that a legal shot or something else?"

2) when the ball hits the rim and is erroneously reset, one of two things happen: a) the officials do not notice and we continue playing (so we're not really following the rule anyway), or b) the officials have to stop the game (thereby taking a scoring opportunity out of the hands of the offensive team), figure out what time "should" be on the clock (usually the table and game officials do not know exactly), and then we've got to restart the game (w/ a small amount of time left on the shot clock) and now we have the coaches yelling at the table personnel (as well as us).......

there's a simple, logical fix: ball hits the rim = shot clock gets reset. i would prefer that the shot clock operator only have to decide: "did the ball hit the rim or not?" rather than also have to decide: "by rule, was that a legal shot or something else?"

the NCAA rule book is 2-3 times thicker than the NBA rule book. it needs to be simplified and this is one rule that can easily be changed.

Interesting points...a couple of questions:

1) Do you really believe that the average basketball fan can't tell the difference between a pass and a shot attempt? What about the average shot clock operator?

2) How many times per game (your games, games you watch, etc) does the shot clock get reset incorrectly?

It just doesn't seem to me that this is really that big of a problem. And - again - your proposal will "reward" the offense with a reset when they haven't really "earned" it.

What do others on the forum think?

As a general rule a shot isn't a mystery. If everyone in the gym thinks it was a shot when the ball went up, 99.5% of the time it probably was.

As someone who works with a shot-clock in a lot of high school games - I counted 19 this season - trust me on this, I notice when there's a screw-up on a reset. I don't think the offense loses a scoring opportunity if I stop to correct the time. If they throw up an airball and get the rebound but the clock is reset incorrectly and I stop the game the offense just gets the time it should've had in the first place...whether it's 20 seconds or two seconds.

I think the NBA rule leaves more consistency and is the better of the two rules...but in practice, 99/100 plays are adjudicated the same way.

essentially, the resolution to the shot clock isssue (during the game/during the play) is worse than the simple change of the rule.

The OP says A1 shot an airball and B2 rebounded. That's Jay's confusion. Apparently the same confusion the shot clock operator had. ;)

Ah, I see what you're saying.

But I mis-read the mis-posting. I took the OP to mean it was rebounded by the offense, because:

If B (defense) had gotten the ball, why would they kick the ball out to reset the offense in their backcourt, and why would B's coach go nuts if they got a fresh 30 on their new possesion? Well, unless B's coach was going nuts that they weren't advancing the ball into their front court... :)

It seems a lot of people are confused over this play, and I include me. :D

It WAS rebounded by the offense, although I can't fault the shot clock guy for thinking the defense had it... watching on TV, I thought the defense had it for a second, but they didn't.

Only think I hate about the resolution of the problem is that the offense was not hurrying to score because they saw the clock and thought they had 30-something seconds to shoot - to suddenly say, NO, you have 2 seconds (or worse, if they had caught it 2 seconds later - NO, you lose the ball) would suck - especially in the situation when this happened.

Which is why I don't want shot clocks in HS. Here in the OP we had a problem which really was a legitimate error by the operator. Now take that to the high school level where these type of mistakes would be very prevalent. You would see a whole bunch of erroneous resets on plays where there shouldn't be really any confusion.

I agree. As I said earlier I work more than a few games with it in H.S. and I don't mind the clock in general but the biggest issue is getting people who can run it properly. Putting a high school kid on the shot clock who may - or most likely may not - be paying attention can cause more headaches than prevent them.