Lost time out...
 

College game last night.

Visiting team is making a comeback from 22 down and have cut the lead to 5 with 4 minutes to go and the teams are trading baskets.

With 1:13 to go Home team gets trapped on the sideline and has to call their last TO. My partners are taking care of the TO administration and having a discussion on the opposite side of the floor. The table crew has told them that the home team still has 1 time out left.

I am observing the home team and the coach tells his team they are out of TO's - as both teams are tracking them. One of my partners is telling the home team that they still have 1 TO left. I go over and tell them that the coach thinks he has no TO's left. The book does a quick recheck, 1 TO left for the home team. Can you smell the home cooking?

Coach has asked R, so if I call TO, you are not going to T me? "no, the book says you have one left"

R explains this to visiting team as well and we get ready to inbound the ball. I bounce the ball to the inbounder, who has trouble getting ball in, but does so on 4 count. Visitors trap the ball near midcourt, clock does not start for 4 or 5 seconds, the home team is able to split the trap and make a pass, AND the shot clock had been reset when the ball was caught by the home team. I remember looking at the clock 1:13 left and :13 left. The T and the C kill the play.

Now that we have fixed everything, the table sounds the horn. "I found the last TO, home team is out of TO's"

Both coaches are difficult in the best of situations. If home team had called a TO, the visiting coach likely goes crazy saying that the extra time out should be TF. If we TF the excessive TO, the home coach goes bananas which might get another TF.

Maybe we should start carrying pad and pen like football/soccer to track TO's ourselves? :)

I'm never gonna do that........ and if the table says they have one left, they subsequently call one, then the table says they didn't have one left, I'm not gonna call a T. jmo

If the coach thinks s/he has zero TOs left, I'm not getting involved even if I think (or the book thinks) they have 1 left).

And, I do try to track them myself.

Like Sergeant Schultz Would Say ...
 

I only want the table to tell me when the team has been granted all of their timeouts, or have been granted an excess (illegal) timeout. I will only tell the coach when his team has been granted all of their timeouts, or when his team has been granted an excess (illegal) timeout. This keeps me out of trouble.

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Basically, if the table makes a mistake and tells the coach he has one timeout left, he calls it, then they say he had none, you're in the clear because you weren't involved? So you think the appropriate thing to do in that sitch is assess the T since there's no blood on your hands? Is that what you're saying?

wow that is one bad official scorer! was the AD of the host institution notified that he should probably start looking for a replacement official scorer? icall-your crew handled this perfectly IMHO

Tell me this didn't happen in the state of Washington. Please.
:D



(sorry :p )

When there was a question about the number of TO's why wasn't the visiting book consulted to see if they match? Yes, the official book is the official book but why not compare them and practice a little preventative officiating?

-Josh

I Am Innocent Of This Man's Blood (Pontius Pilate) ...
 

God invented assistant coaches to keep their mouths shut, to keep their butts on the bench, and to keep track of granted timeouts. Officials are not expected to know, and communicate, any more timeout information then is required by the rules. If the table communicates the wrong information to the coach, and then the coach requests, and is granted, an excess (illegal) time out, then I don't believe that we can give his team a pass, and that we must charge the team with a technical foul. Even if it's the visiting coach, he still has a scorekeeper at the bench to, hopefully, prevent this situation.

If the table forgot to inform me that the team had been granted their last timeout, with me, obviously, not communicating this to the coach, and then he requested, and was granted, another timeout, at which time the scorekeeper informed me that the coach requested, and was granted, an excess (illegal) timeout, then I would still charge a technical foul to the team. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I don't believe that invoking 2-3, or advantage/disadvantage is allowed, by rule here, although if an official chose to go this route, I would not point out the undercarriage of a bus to him.

There's guy I now that uses an elastic to track TOs and fouls (whether or not we're in the bonus).

He does it because the score keeping is atrocious at times.

To combat the problem in some tournaments that I've worked, where coaches think they have more TOs than what the table shows, I have taught the table that the more you document things, the less chance that a challenge to your record keeping will be made. So I have them record the quarter and time remaining, along with the location of the the ball, when the TO is granted. The look at the scorer's face, when the coach walks away in a huff after given this information, is priceless.

When I sit on the bench that's exactly what I do!

In my own experiences as a scorekeeper, a number of officials seem to understand the portion of the rule that says the referee shall accept the record of the official score book, but ignore the second half of the sentence that allows the official to rule otherwise in the presence of definitive knowledge.

I was scorekeeper at a MS-G doubleheader a few years back where the home team had no scorer at the table for the 7th grade game and the start of the 8th grade game. It was until the final period when it looked as if the home team took an excessive timeout that someone suddenly appeared with a score book claiming that the home team still had a time out left.

I tried to question how that book could be accurate since the book wasn't there to start the game and could not have accurate information for both teams (because nobody was around for me to submit our roster to) and such, but the referee was steadfast that the home book is always the official book and whatever is in it stands. :mad:

I always record time/period/who asked when granted. It's helped out in the past. At an old rec tournament I used to score at. A team was sure they had more time outs left, but when I read off when each one was taken and by whom, that was persuasive enough for the officials.

This is why I am not a fan of telling coaches what they have on my own. I do not try to find out and I do not try to tell everyone what the situation is as a normal practice. The teams should be following this on their own and if there is an issue then we can get involved, but as a general rule, I stay out of these. But people feel like this is so important and do it and here is why I want to stay out of these bookkeeping issue.

Peace

IOW, you have no interest in managing the game. You have no interest in communicating with the table or coaches. You have no interest in preventative officiating. You're just out there to blow your whistle.

That's not an acceptable mode of operation here.

Thanks.

My handy dandy CCA manual (NCAAW) says "Notify the head coach of the team that has called its final timeout." So...we say nothing.

There's really nothing positive that can come from telling a coach they have a timeout when they don't think they do and the table isn't sure. If they - the coach - think they're out, no one tries to call one. If we tell them they have one then they call it and during the TO the table says, "ummm, they actually didn't have one" then we have to charge that team with an administrative T. The penalty is even worse in my code since the other team gets the ball.

If the situation is reversed - table says no TO, we give that information to the coach and the coach believes he/she has one - then it'll be figured out right then and there.

As was said earlier, this is what assistant coaches are for. Regarding the table: in a college game there are two scorers and a play-by-play person sitting there. The official NCAA scorebook also includes space to write down who called a timeout and when. I would think one of those folks should've been able to figure out what was wrong fairly quickly.