Act of Shooting Sitch
 

Please verify the legitimacy of the answer given for this situation, with special attention on the wording found in the answer:

PLAY: A1 drives the lane and starts to shoot by bringing the ball up in his hands, waist high. B1 hits A1's wrist, the ball becomes loose and continues waist high for approximately two feet straight ahead. B2 hits the ball and it goes up and into the basket. Does the goal count.

RULING: Since A1's attempt never got above the player's waist the try would not count. The try ends when it is certain it will be unsuccessful. A1 was fouled in the act of shooting and should be awareded two free throws as a result of the foul by B1 (NFHS 4-41-1,2,3,4).

Does something about this "ruling" sound as foreign to you as it does to me?

Dont think of waist level as being significant. A1 lost control of the ball at level "X", and the ball went horizontal staying "X" height. then deflected by B1 up toward the basket.

So the ruling is saying the try ends when the ball stopped going up and flew horizontal before being deflected.

The problem is the focus on the "waist". Correct ruling, shady reasoning.

Agree. I think they mention the ball going horizontally two feet to stress that there was enough time to determine the try would not be successful before the deflection.

It appears that Freddy and I are NASO members because the OP is found in NASO's IT'S OFFICIAL section of the August 2014 edition of Referee.

The funny part about the RULING is that the NCAA Rules citations given in the ruling do not exist in the 2013-15 NCAA Men's and Women's Rules Books.

MTD, Sr.

I was going to rule the goal counts because the OP never says a foul was called on B1 :D

As to MTDS's point: the NCAA rules cited are 4-14, 4-73-1 and 4-73-3.

*4-14 is the definition of Ejection (both codes)
*4-73 doesn't exist.

They gave the rule citations under the 2011-13 rule book. They were going for "Continuous Motion" and "Act of Shooting/Try for Goal."

JetMetFan:

Thank you for doing my due diligence. I was too lazy to open the folder for the NCAA 2011-13 folder on my computer. LOL!

MTD, Sr.

I almost sprained my index finger opening that folder on my computer :D

There is an NFHS casebook ruling on a ball striking a player's shoulder and then entering the basket. The ruling is that the try ended when it fell below the level of the ring and no goal is scored. The ruling in the OP is basically the same without the ball first going up above the level of the ring.