Start the clock....
 

If the first touch on a throw in is an illegal touch (ie kick, two hand grab on a jump, etc) does the clock start?

There shouldn't be, but you might depending on how fast/how antsy the clock operator is.

And no, there is no mandatory run-off. I know you didn't ask, just trying to promote awareness. I had an R this year take off .3 after a quick touch and deflection OOB when the clock had not started. This was right after I (C tableside) told the coach who wanted time to come off that unless we have definite knowledge (like a count or looking at the clock when it should have stopped) then we cannot add/take off time. Yeah, that was a fun game.

According to that rule book thing...
 

NFHS 5-9

2. If play is started or resumed by a jump, the clock shall be started when the tossed ball is legally touched.
3. If a free throw is not successful and the ball is to remain live, the clock shall be started when the ball touches or is touched by a player on the court.
4. If play is resumed by a throw-in, the clock shall be started when the ball touches, or is legally touched by, a player on the court after it is released by the thrower.

===================

NCAA 5-10-2

The game clock shall be started when:
a. An inbounds player legally touches the ball on a throw-in;
b. A tossed ball on a jump ball is legally touched; or
c. The ball legally touches a player on the playing court when a free throw is not successful and is to remain live.

Second part of the question, if time did come off the clock would you correct it. Does it make a difference to you whether it is the jump ball to start the game or the final minutes of the game?

Your examples don't mesh.
A kicked ball or one punched with a closed fist is an illegal first touch because that is not a legal manner in which to contact the ball. Therefore, no time comes off the clock and if any does it should be restored.
However, catching a jump ball is not an illegal touch, it is simply a jump ball violation. The same as stepping out of bounds with the ball is a violation. This action should be timed and whatever comes off the clock prior to the whistle sounding for the violation should not be restored.

Illegal Touch ...
 

Are you sure? How about touching the jump ball while it's on its way up?

Case play, please?

Being called for a kick-ball on a throw-in is as much a violation as catching a jump ball or catching a throw-in pass while OOB. None of them is a legal touch of the ball. If any of them was they wouldn't be listed as violations.

If the ball is tapped (with one hand) and then caught -- the clock runs.

If the ball is just caught with both hands (cleanly), then I would not run it.

I've never seen the latter.

The first touch would be legal and therefore not apply to the question at hand. Catching the ball with 2 hands would fall in the this category.

You need to get around more :D I know I've had it a few times over the years.

And BNR is correct..

I guess I have to get around more too. I have never seen a player catch the ball before the jump ball was tipped. ;)

Peace

Agreed -- just was trying to be sure we were all discussing the same play (esp. since I've never seen anyone even go for the "initial" touch with two hands)

It happened once in a varsity game but I had it a few times in MS games (rec or otherwise), too. The scenario was always both jumpers missed the tap and before the ball hit the floor - obviously - one of the jumpers panicked and caught the ball. Then there would be that pregnant pause of "What the heck do we do now?" before the jumper dropped the ball as though it was a hand grenade.

There were a few case plays/interps issued when the AP arrow rule was altered so that a team retained the arrow if the opponent kicked the ball on the initial touch of the throw-in pass.

One of the plays dealt with a player catching/touching the throw-in pass while standing on a boundary line. It said the touching was legal and the arrow switched, but it was an OOB violation and the opponent's ball at that new location.

From the above play, one can deduce that the NFHS ruling is that touching the ball with the hands (not a closed fist) is a legal action in itself. There may be other restrictions such as OOB, jump ball parameters, BI/GT, etc. which cause the touch to be a violation, but that doesn't mean that the touch isn't proper.

It may be parsing in a legal or exercise in mental logic, but that's the rationale for why such a touch would be timed.

What do you mean the "touch would be timed"?

If the touch is a violation, the clock, if running, stops. If it isn't running, it doesn't start.

I seem to remember a spirited discussion with Jurassic Referee about this years ago.

I disagree with your statement here.
The rules state that the clock starts on the touch and stops when the violation is whistled. For a kick the NFHS issued a specific statement to not start the clock.

5-8-1: .......the clock, if running, shall be stopped when an official signals a violation.

This tells me that if it is not running there's nothing to do.

Are you saying that if the throw-in pass is caught by a player standing on the sideline you will chop the clock in and then signal the violation?

The "you" here might be two different officials. The administering official may not be in any position to observed the OOB situation. Thus, time will be started by the administering official and will be stopped by the covering official.

If it is one official (me), I'm not going to start then stop the clock.

Yes.

Any way you slice it, you are starting the clock at a time when it should be stopping. I see no way to justify this.

On this play I know the answer for NCAAW would be no.

A group of officials and I discussed this scenario after a scrimmage a few years ago. We were split so I e-mailed Debbie Williamson. I e-mailed her again in Feb. of 2012 since I'd forgotten the interpretation:

Nothing has come out in the past two years indicating the interpretation has changed.

I think we should use some common sense here. If the clock has not started and the first touch results in a violation, I don't think the clock should have run. It's kinda like that "legal touch" language that ends a throw-ins.

Unless it's the end of the game and getting the time correct is paramount, I will probably ignore trifling timing errors.

Regarding the other issue, if a player catches the ball with a foot on the sideline, is that really a legal touch? Wouldn't the ball come back to the original throw-in spot just like if the ball never touched anyone inbounds before going out?

It's an OOB violation, not a throw-in violation, so the next spot is where the ball was touched.

Misty Watercolor Memories ...
 

Taking a walk down Memory Lane, this used to be a throwin violation. If inbounder A1's throwin first touched B1, who was out of bounds, possession went to Team B at the spot of the original throwin. You heard right. Team B's possession.

This odd ruling was changed about thirty years ago. It might still confuse some more experienced (how's that for a euphemism) officials.

If a player'slocation is determined by where he last touched the floor and if that location was OOB, then why would we not have a throw in from the same spot of the last throw in? I am thinking that this would be the same as a ball that was thrown down court and not touched before going out of bounds. In that case we come back to the original thrw in spot so it makes sense to me that we should do the same if the first plkayer to touch it is standing OOB. But, I am open to other opinions since all I am going on is my own "common sense".

This is the problem with using common sense when there are rules to use instead (not a knock on you Rich, lots of us try to do it).

In the rule book, throw in violations are separate from OOB violations, and the spot of the throw in is different for each.

A throw in violation occurs if the thrower fails to throw the ball so that it touches a player before going out of bounds. If another player catches the ball, but is standing out of bounds, the thrower has done his job. It is not, therefore, a throw in violation.

The player who catches the ball, however, has committed an OOB violation, so the throw in spot is determined accordingly.

Adam, looking at it that way makes it easier to understand. Since a different player caused to be an OOB violation then we would use that spot. Thanks.

And that is also why this action is timed!

As posted above in this thread, the text of the NCAA rule is different from that of the NFHS. The NCAA specifies that the touch must be by an "inbounds player" while the NFHS does not have such a requirement.

Whether the action should be timed is certainly up for debate, but I fail to see how your reasoning here applies.

For me, if the same action that should cause the clock to start (ball being touched by player) also causes the clock to stop, then it's valid that no time should elapse and I tend to rule accordingly if I'm the official responsible for both.

I wouldn't make a correction either way, however, during a game.

Because the throw-in location is now possibly a great distance away from where it was before and the action was not a throw-in violation. How do you account for that without any time coming off the clock?
A play took place which results in a new throw-in from a different location on the court. Doesn't that action need to be timed as part of the game (absent a rule such as the NCAA has)?
That is the logic being my thinking.

I don't see how the two are related....the location of the new throwin and the clock.

A foul or other non-throwin violation could occur somewhere else on the court before the clock starts. Such an occurrence could result in a throw-in at a different spot all without the clock starting.

I think that the clock starting is acceptable. I also think that the clock not starting is also acceptable. I'm not going to make any correction regardless of which of the two occurs short of the clock running and continuing to run too long.

If the touch is a violation, the ball is dead. The clock does not start when the ball is dead.


period

People should also consider the history of this NFHS rule.
I don't have time at the moment to post the documentation, so I'll edit this post later and do so.
The word legally was added to account for a rule change involving the kicking of the ball by a defender during an AP throw-in. Prior to that the clock started on any touch by a player from a throw-in pass. Now we must understand the wording to have only altered the timing rule for contact by a kick (or fist). Why? Because that is what the NFHS said when making the change.

Is your Enter key broken? I agree with your reasoning on the OOB violation location vs. throw-in violation location. I don't think the clock can run if the first touch is a violation. I think that's common sense, and even old interpretations or the "history" you talk about shouldn't apply now. There are some rules where the history matters but I don't think this is one of them.

I think I would in a late game situation where the timer erroneously runs the clock. Could be important with only a few seconds left.

I honestly think that if this question was presented to the NFHS powers that be, they would issue an interpretation saying that no time should come off the clock. It doesn't make logistical nor common sense for any time to run off the clock when a violation occurs simultaneously with the first touch.

In theory, yes, no time should come off the clock b/c no official should be chopping the clock in. In practice, officials are going to incorrectly chop the clock and timers are going to incorrectly start the clock.

We should get JAR on that immediately. Or just check what the NCAA-W's interpretation is and go with that... Get it??

Why is your default that the officials are incorrectly chopping the clock?
For decades the correct procedure has been to chop the clock. The default should be to chop.

How is the official administering the throwin and chopping time supposed to know whether a player, on the other side of the court, is or is not OOB? The administering official is supposed to chop time in when the ball is touched. The official covering the line is to signal the OOB violation. There very likely will be a slight delay in the whistle. So, the timer starts the clock on the chop and stops it on the whistle. There really is no error there short of an explicit rule or case indicating that this is an error.

I'll go back to the "legally touched" part of the NFHS rule as to why the clock shouldn't start. If a player touches the ball while standing on a sideline or endline it's a violation, which is not a legal touch of the ball.

IN THEORY, we should not be chopping the clock if the ball is illegally touched.

The official covering the line in question can also be the official administering the throw-in, they are not mutually exclusive. And if I'm covering the line, I'm going to know if the player is standing OOB.

Seems to me that it's a given that 0.0000 seconds elapsed between the instant the clock should start and the instant the clock should stop, and we, the officials, have positive knowledge of that. No time should run off in this case.

The wild card in all this (I believe this was touched on above) is the timer. In high school games I believe it is much too common that the timer does not look for a signal from the official to start the clock at all. I'm sure this would be even more likely to be the case if the throw-in is a long pass involving another line and a second official.

Certainly, they could be the same person. But, in a 3-person game, the administering official is only going to be covering one line much of the time (sometimes two).

As for illegally touched, I don't think it is illegally touched. It is legally touched in an illegal location. And that is the difference.

The NFHS has previously distinguished between the two in a few ways. For example, a kick is considered a violation before the throwin ends. An OOB violation is treated as if it occurs after the throwin ends. This is demonstrated in how the arrow is treated on a throwin. If the violation is a kick (illegal contact) the arrow is not switched. If the violation is an OOB (legal contact, illegal location) the arrow is switched. Likewise with the right to run the endline when there is a violation on a throw-in.

Whether the throw-in ended, or whether it ended legally is important for some things. It is not important here. If a violation ends the throw-in, no matter what the violation is, the clock does not start.

Agree with this.

If this came up in a game situation and the clock started but the first touch was an "illegal" touch, I'm considering it a timing error and re-setting the clock back to where it was, assuming that the exact time prior to the throw in was known.

This is true. In the days of "lag time," I'd have stuck to the "don't fix it" mantra. Now that the NFHS has started to clean up the lag time issues and allow us to fixing timing errors as little as .1 second, I'm inclined to fix this and put the time back on the clock if it is erroneously allowed to run.

And on the most basic level that incorrect understanding is what I've consistently posted against in this entire thread. The touching of the ball itself is not illegal, such as a kick would be. Rather the player is breaking some other rule by where he is standing.

I agree 100%. Thanks for posting excellent illustrative examples of how "legally touched" is interpreted and enforced under NFHS rules.
Hopefully, these examples will make some people think about this situation in a new light and realize that the same understanding needs to be applied to the rules pertaining to starting and stopping the clock.

So NFHS 9-3-2 (No player shall be out of bounds when he/she touches or is touched by the ball after it has been released on a throw-in pass) means the touching isn't illegal? That's where we part company. In that particular instance the touching is illegal and the rule supports that idea.

By the way, if you're going to run time off the clock in the case of a a player catching a throw-in while standing OOB how much time should be run off? There's also nothing in the rules calling for an automatic run-off of, say, 0.3 seconds when a player contacts the ball.

This is a case of a touch and a violation taking place simultaneously. While the rule book doesn't always deal in logic, running the clock in this situation doesn't seem logical.

The clock question really isn't all that different than the situation where the ball is thrown inbounds and is touched inbounds where it is immediately knocked OOB. We all know the clock should have started and then stopped but if no time has elapsed what do you do? Usually...nothing.

The point of the matter is that one official properly indicates that the clock should start and the timer does so. Another official covering the line where the ball is thrown, a moment later, indicates that the clock should stop...and the timer does so. I just don't see where there is an error. Everyone did what they were supposed to do. Short of a rule that says that it is an error to do what you're supposed to do, I see this as just a quirk in the rules and coverages.

What about the equally likely scenario where both signals are made simultaneously, and the timer does not start the clock.

Or the primary question, what if Nevada is officiating and everything happens in his coverage. He chops time in and immediately hits his whistle. The timer does not respond, and no time runs off.
Anyone taking time off?

As I stated earlier, I think it is acceptable for time to come off or not. I don't think there is an error here in either case.

I am not, however, going to chop time in and stop it myself. But if I were to do so and no time comes off, how much of a correction could possibly be made? Would 0.05 seconds matter?