A1 pump fakes...B2, thinking a shot is about to go up turns to face the basket. A1 drives and go to and through the back of stationary B2....B2 never obtained an initial legal guarding position.

Are you going to call a block here because B2 did not have LGP?

Your interpreter would be wrong (according to NFHS rules) ... as was previously stated, it isn't a case of legal guarding position. It would be a travel on the ball handler if there is control.

This is the reason I think I would consider this to be incidental contact.

Not a comparable scenario.

B2 has LGP in this one, so this is an easy, if unpopular, PC call. You don't have to face someone to have LGP. You only need to be facing to establish it.

I already changed the scenario to indicate that B2 never obtained legal guarding position.

Every player is, by rule, entitled to his spot on the court, and LGP is not required for this. LGP is meant to add privileges for the defender, not to add requirements to a stationary (with regard to the court position) player.

And you are 100% correct. But, at the same time, your point is 100% irrelevant.

LGP is only relevant when the defender is moving. If you read what LGP allows, that is all you've find....that various movements are legal once it is obtained. Stationary players may have LGP but they don't need it since they're not doing any of the things afforded by having LGP.

Actually you didn't. B2, in your play, had it to start with. Turning away doesn't remove it.

It has only been in the recent past that the NCAA rule diverged from the NHFS rule. It is not whether the player on the floor has LGP. What matters is did the player on the floor aquire his position legally (think screening and Principla of Verticality).

For example, during rebouding action, A1 gets a defensive rebound and B1 is standing directly behind him but is facing toward's Team A's basket. B1 does not have a LGP but he is entitled to his spot on the floor and if A1 turns around and knocks him down it is a PCF by A1 in both NFHS and NCAA rules.

Change my play just slightly: B1 has fallen to the floor behind A1 instead. He is still legally entitled to his spot on the floor (see Principle of Verticality) and if A1 trys to dribble over B1 or trips over B1, A1 has infringed upon B1's Cylinder of Verticality (I love this FIBA term because it describes how we should apply the Principle of Verticality.).

But the nimcompoops (I hope I spelled that correctly, :p) in the NCAA who don't have a clue as to what a legal position on the floor issued an interpretation changing a logical ruling that had been with us for decades (if not centuries, :p).

MTD, Sr.

No, they decided that laying (lying??) down on the floor is not a legal guarding position. I like it that way.

That's the problem with the nimcompoops logic, LGP has nothing to do with the situation. The criteria that had to be applied was: Was B1 legally entitled to the spot on the floor? LGP had nothing to do with the situation.

MTD, Sr.

Which Came First ???
 

I've heard of donkey basketball, but I've never heard of chicken basketball.

Surely you're not trying to imply that any contact with a player who is not facing the opponent is somehow a foul on that player...

LGP applies in specific situations. Getting landed on is not one of them.

They don't want players lying on the floor so they say having a legal guarding position is relevant. And from attending camps this summer they also don't want defenders just standing in the paint with their backs turned.

In most cases, the player on the gound has just fallen....perhaps to be considered to be still moving and, thus, needing LGP.

I don't have a problem with the ends that the NCAA is after....they don't want a defender to be able to legally block a path wider than they can block while vertical. That does make sense to me. There may have been a better way to write it so that it wouldn't confuse others about when LGP is and is not needed, but I don't write the rules.