I knew what you meant
 

I was being sarcastic that the way it was written, you were questioned and ZAP, they were gone. Never question the BZ! ;)

Nope, that's up to the Center to help out with. Or the other strong-side official if it's a front court throw-in.

Fire Up the Flux Capacitor ...
 

What is this "Center" that you speak of? After I drive my black Ford Model T to my game, there's only one partner waiting for me. Connecticut is the "Land That Time (And Three Person Mechanics) Forgot".

Interesting...I used to do this until a D-I official suggested otherwise.

Then your comments don't apply. My post was for a specific camp, a college camp. And obviously it applied to a 3-man crew.

Do what works best for you in your games. But if (when) you go to the CIAA camp, and most officials in this area with college aspirations (NCAA-M or NCAA-W) attend the CIAA at least once in their career, then do it the Roman way.

Of course, and thanks for the advice.

At the camps I have been to here the OSSAA has explicitly told us not to step into the court. Always get wide and away from the inbounder, without bouncing the ball if staying in the frontcourt. If going the other way a bounce is okay. Once I was being evaluated in a game, and I bounced the ball to the inbounder and was a few steps in front of the endline when the inbound happened at the evaluator told me to never get in front of the play.

A lot of different opinions that will work given specific situations. The only pet peeve of mine is when officials raise their arm then hand the player the ball. It just doesn't look good to me. There is no rush so handing the ball, raising the arm and starting the count is better IMO.

I have a very specific way I handle this process, but at the end of the day my process is just something I do for consistency. I would suggest finding something that works, sticking to it and paying attention to other more pressing matters.

That's interesting. If I saw you hand the player the ball without your arm raised I would wonder why you did that when you weren't ready to go.

I do what Tommy does as to slow down my count. I am not in a hurry to count the 5 second count and has nothing to do with not being ready.

Peace

You'd be wondering the same thing about me then also. ;)

My reference to "looking clean" was for handing the ball to the inbounding player using the arm closest to him. If I'm standing to his left (he's between me and the lane/basket) I hand the ball with my right hand with left arm raised. Take a couple steps away from the player - staying out of bounds but not too far so I can see the vertical plane of the end line for violations - then put my whistle in mouth and start visible count with left hand after chopping the clock.

That all makes it sound like it's an eternity before my visible begins, but it's all fluid and works well, I think. Some evaluator is probably drooling over his chance to bite into me for that. :)

While I wouldn't want to put all of my ways on someone else, I think through almost everything and do things with some kind of logical thought.

1. I'm not in a hurry. This process slows things down.
2. Most of the time I bounce the ball with both hands and then raise my arm.
3. (heavily opinion based talking about myself) You know how something happens just as you are about to hand the ball to a player that keeps you from handing him/her the ball? It could be a sub, a partner isn't ready or anything that delays the inbounding. Yeah, I will not be that dufus holding his hand up the whole time OR having my hand up, lowering it because of the delay and then putting it back up.

I asked myself a long time ago, "Tom, what is the cleanest way to handle inbounding the ball?" And I answered, "Give the player the ball first, then raise your hand. It will look so much better." :D

Like I just said, I think everything through and I have a question for you. If we can agree, that raising your hand/arm cuts of part of your peripheral vision, and the player cuts off part of your vision beyond the player, which arm could we raise to cut off the least amount of vision? The arm closest to the player or furthest away from the player? This also assuming we agree that taking a step away/back after the player has the ball is a good practice.

This is opposite of the thought process I have for calling fouls or signalling three-point attempts, but since I'm not 6'8" the player will cut off my vision beyond the player anyway. Is that confusing?