Possession question
 

I'm not a bb official, but was asked about this instance. Buzzer goes off at the end of the 3rd quarter and the official calls for a jump ball. Arrow says team A. Teams go to benches and come back out for the 4th and team b is awarded possession of the ball. Team A got the throw in for the 3rd quarter. The argument was why didn't team A get the throw in for the 4th quarter after the official called a jump ball? Thank you.

The alternating possession throw-in never happened for the "jump ball" the official called as time was expiring, so the arrow should not have been changed. You start the next quarter with the AP throw in according to the arrow.
And, just because Team A got the ball for the throw in to start the third quarter, doesn't mean Team B will get it for the fourth quarter, there are lots of ways the alternating arrow can change over the course of the game, not just at the beginning of a quarter.

the throw in's are decided by the AP arrow not who got the throw in for each quarter in HS and College.

Secondly when a quarter ends the next quarter is started with the AP arrow.

How can you have a jump ball after the buzzer sounds to end a quarter? you can't. If the AP arrow was pointing at team A then then they should have had the ball to start the 4th quarter.

To OP: Please see 6-4-4 and 4-42-5.

The OP said he isn't a basketball official. I would doubt that he has a rule book.

A should have gotten the throw in, not B.

Having been a scorekeeper for many years, this looks like a forgotten change of the arrow. The OP states team A got the ball to start the third quarter. Assuming no held balls during the third quarter, the arrow should have team B possession. Upon conferring at the end of the quarter, it's discovered that the arrow wasn't changed at the beginning of the quarter, therefore giving B the possession arrow. It happens.

(Agree that you can't have a held ball after the buzzer.)

In all of my games, I suspect I could count on my hand the number of times I've had an entire quarter go by without using the arrow at all .

I think OP is right, albeit for the wrong reason.

That's quite an assumption.

I would agree, although I have had a few games where the arrow only changed at each quarter. Just throwing out how/why the actual throw in was in conflict with what the arrow showed. I think the jump ball is a distraction.

The OP also says that at the time of the "held ball" the arrow was in favor of A.

But this is all pretty simple:
*If the arrow was properly in the directon of A at the time of the "held ball" that ended Q3, then an error was made.

(But, especailly if it was an MS game, it would hardly be surprising if the table was simply wrong and the arrow was supposed to be for B already.)

Really? I don't find it uncommon at all. It's certainly more common in boys games than girls games. And in sub-varsity it's less likely. But in varsity games, it's not unusual at all.

In the boys game I work, it's not too uncommon to have 2-3 quarters without a held ball.

And in 6th grade girls games, it's not too uncommon to go 2 or 3 possessions without a held ball . . . I rember reffing those games in HS (my "training" was reading the rule book) -- and my arm could be tired from tossing the ball up so many times. . . I still think the guys on the committee who adopted the horrific possession arrow "solution" must have done those young games . . .

The thread was briefly on point and then got off topic. So I wanted to get back to the OP.

When a violation or held ball occurs so close to the expiration of playing time for a quarter that the timer is unable to stop the clock in time, the quarter ends with the violation or held ball. In other words, we essentially ignore it unless we have definite knowledge of a timing mistake that would give us reason to put time back on the clock.

So in this case, it sounds like it was a case of a held ball nearly simultaneous with the expiration of time. Leave the clock alone, ignore the held ball, send the teams to their benches and start the next quarter with whoever had the arrow in the first place, which is Team A....

....Except the officials in this case went with Team B. So either they made a mistake or the table corrected an arrow mistake during the intermission. Since you said that Team A had the arrow to start the 3rd, it could be that the table and officials realized that there had been no uses of the arrow during the 3rd quarter and therefore the arrow was wrong. This happens all the time in sub-varsity contests with inexperienced table personnel. It's why I always alternate a spare whistle in my pockets. That's right; I have a possession arrow in my pants.