Intentional Lane Violation on FT attempt
 

Situation: My team is up 3 points, less than 10 seconds to play in regulation game... We foul our opponent to negate them hitting a 3 point shot to tie the game. They MAKE their first FT. They intend to MISS the second FT.

Therefore, in order to keep our opponent from missing the second FT, rebounding the miss and scoring a game tying 2 point shot, I instruct our players to intentionally violate the lane on each FT attempt until our opponent MAKES the FT.


If I instruct my team to intentionally violate the lane, i.e. enter early, before each FT in which our opponent is purposefully trying to miss, could it be construed as unsportsmanlike behavior that could result in my team being assessed a Technical foul?

Yes, it could, and I would warn you after probably the second offense.

You'd only get one warning.

The reasoning is, we're at an impasse in the game if the offense wants to miss and the defense wants to force them to make it by committing violations. Only one of those strategies is actually employing a violation of the rules, so that's the one we'll target.

Thanks, Adam.

I thought it was a good idea. A story was relayed to me that this technique was espoused by Don Meyer. Guess it's not a viable option.

Not that I don't believe you but... I'd still like to hear other opinions.

No worries. We've discussed the play here before. I'm not sure this is spelled out in the rules, and some may let it go. The consensus here, though, was that this is an advantage not intended by the rules.

Okay...

+1 :)

Here's a previous thread on the topic.

Who is Don Meyer? And should I care what he espouses?

My approach would be the same as Adam's.

My approach would be the same as Maven's. I'd even T up Don Meyer.

You obviously don't know who Don Meyer is.

Oscar's uncle, right?

Beware if you see this car outside the gym.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../7b/OurDog.jpg

Well, he's certainly no Jon Diebler.

Yabut....who is?! :)

I hope you had the arrow in your favor when you tried this.

Arrow doesn't come into play in this situation.

It could if the shooting team was smart and they had the arrow.

If B1 steps into the lane early in an attempt to "force" a make, and A1 sees it, he can simply shoot an airball. That gives us a double violation, and A gets the ball for a throw in under their own basket.

True, though I got the feeling that LeeBall thought the arrow was in play inherently....I could be wrong though.

I don't know if my post is going to help settle anything here.

First, I reviewed the thread the Adam had referenced earlier in this thread and was surprised that I had not commented in it even after BillyMac had requested for responses from veteran officials who remembered the Lack of Sufficient Action rule.

Second, in the older thread (Nov. 2011) I believe it was M&M Guy gave a number of rules references that correctly stated that our situation is not a delay of game situation.

Third, the best way to describe our situation is that once the ball becomes Live, one team is deliberately committing a violation in order to force their opponent to play offense in a certain way and the team committing the violation is doing it every time the ball is made Live again after the penalty for the violation is enforced.

Is this a TF for unsportsmanlike conduct? I don't know. Teams commit fouls to stop the clock and make their opponents shoot FTs in an effort to get the ball back. Is this an unsportsmanlike conduct TF?

Of course if this were a soccer game we could issue a Yellow Card (Yellow Card for those that can't make out the yellow lettering_ for persistent infringement and award an IDFK to the free throw shooting team, :p.

MTD, Sr.

BADNEWSREF... Allow me to introduce you to Coach Don Meyer. He's a great coach, but an even better person. Check out the link below:

Don Meyer - YouTube

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/UXZkpTetst4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Strategic fouling is an accepted part of the game. I've never read anything that would suggest that repeatedly committing FT violations is an accepted part of the game.

Just joined the forum, though I've been reading for a couple months...

Wouldn't this resolve itself on its own eventually without the need for a T?

It's not easy to intentionally "miss" the shot over and over again without eventually missing the rim (and violating). At this point, you have a double violation and go to the alternating possession right?

That won't do the offense any good if the defense has the AP arrow.

Intentionally committing a violation over and over again is turning the game into an action-less affair. Missing a free throw causes the game to continue. Which one do you think should be penalized?

I understand that, but I also would want to avoid the appearance of "doing good" for one team over another.

Sort of playing devil's advocate here, but if the defense has the AP, and the offense saw the strategy they were deploying of intentionally violating, they could change their strategy of intentionally trying to miss.

The contest is becoming actionless because both teams are refusing to do what we typically think of as normal (make a shot and not violate). Sure one is violating

At some point, the shooter will violate while attempting to miss, and then lose possession if they don't have the AP. If I was the coach, rather than hoping the Refs come up with a reason to issue a T to the other team, I would go to plan B ... Make the shot and try for a steal/foul.

Only one team is preventing the clock from starting, that's the team violating on purpose....here's a better Plan B: How about the defense box out and prevent an offensive rebound?

Or that would work too... I guess I'm just wondering if there has been a difinitive statement from NFHS on this specific case. I read through a previous thread regarding this and it looked like an NCAAW interpreter indicated there was no basis in the current rules that would justify warning/issuing a T for this. But that thread was from 2004 so things may have changes since then.

If you're at a level that's high enough where this "strategy" would be employed, I highly though the shooter will violate in his attempt to miss. Not in any timely fashion before Team B is going to be whacked.

There's only one team making this an action-less contest...Team A has fulfilled all its requirements for/during the free throw while B hasn't by repeatedly committing violations.

The intent and purpose of the rules:

A player or a team should not be permitted an advantage which is not intended by a rule.


I think we would all agree that this was not the purpose of the lane violation rule.

Yep, to me, it's in the same category as a defender stepping out of bounds to stop a fast break, or the scoring team committing a dog violation with the clock running at less than five seconds.

Not unlike the case where we're told to ignore a throwin plane violation with time running low, we could easily ignore the lane violation for the same reasons.

We could, except this violation gives the defense an unfair advantage on the rebound.

You're right, I was thinking of a different situation....one where the shooting team misses not so they can get the rebound but just to make the clock start and have time run out.