5 second count

[johnny d]

Last season, in one of the few HS games I worked, I completely forgot to do a ten second back court count. I was too used to going by the shot clock, that using a count did not even register, even after I looked up to make sure the shot clock was running (which it wasn't, since there wasn't one). After what was probably 12-15 seconds, I looked up again, and finally realized there was not a shot clock, and I was screwed because I wasn't really keeping that good of a count in my head. A second or so later, the offensive team got the ball into the front court, but the entire last few seconds the defensive coach was screaming for 10 seconds. I would have been completely guessing, so I did not make the call. When I got in front of the defensive coach, he asked how there wasn't a 10 second violation on that possession. I told him I screwed up, was doing college mechanics out of habit and forgot to count expecting to be able to use the shot clock. I told him I would make sure it didn't happen again. He said thanks for the explanation, and we moved on.