Ball goes through bottom of hoop

[ChuckElias]

Hmmmm, you may may have missed part of our discussion, BITS. I alluded to this earlier in the thread, but I'll give a little more detail this time. Consider the following two plays:

1) A1 has the ball OOB for a throw-in in A's frontcourt. A1 throws the ball toward A's basket trying to "alley-oop" the ball to A2. However, as the ball is directly over the basket, and in the imaginary cylinder, B2 swats away the pass.

2) A1 has the ball in A's backcourt. B1 knocks the ball away and a scramble ensues. A2 recovers the ball, still in the backcourt, but gets confused and throws the ball toward B's basket. A1 realizes that if the ball goes in, the points will be awarded to Team B. So A1 jumps to knock the ball away from the basket. As the ball is on the rim, A1 swats it away.

So what do we have here? We have two situations in which there is no try, and yet in both situations, we have BI and will award points to the offended team.

In Play 1, the ball is live (b/c it's a throw-in), but it is not a try (b/c it would be a violation for the ball to go in the basket). But since it's a live ball in the cylinder, nobody can touch it. When B2 deflects the pass, we score 2 for Team A.

Likewise in Play 2, we do not have a try, b/c A2 is throwing the ball toward his opponent's basket. However, A1 still may not touch the ball while it is on the rim. Therefore, we score 2 even without a try.

It may seem funny, but if you know the definition of BI it makes perfect sense. Hope that helps.