Player Game Entry

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by HawkeyeCubP

If the player was a pre-time out player:
NFHS: It's a team T for the rule cited already for failure to have all players return to the court at approximately the same time following a time out.
NCAA: Without some sort of intentional deception to gain an advantage in the officials' judgment, there isn't much rule support to call anything.

But again, the ruling specifies, before making the ruling, that several things happened before the 5th player eventually returned. If they wanted it to be an immediate T, it would have stopped the setup when the ball was made live...not after several more actions. The purpose of the rule is to prevent a team from having a player sneak back in late for a potential advantage, intended or not. Thus, the occurrence being penalized is when the missing player enters the court, not when 4 enter without the 5th.