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.

That is a practice appropriate for MS officials. I would suggest that you discard it and just look at the arrow on the table after every AP throw-in to confirm that it is properly switched.

And apparently a couple D1 officials I have seen on tv recently.

Really? You are saying that officials with access to a courtside video monitor and play-by-play technology are using a whistle in their pockets to track AP?

Yes. I guess some habits die hard. :cool:

When In Rome, Old Habits Die Hard ...
 

Here, in my little corner of Connecticut, we are very strongly encouraged (from the get go, during training) to keep track of the possession arrow with an extra whistle in our pocket. We've been doing this since the invention of the possession arrow. Last week, during our Cancer Awareness Week (one quarter game fee donated to American Cancer Society), we used pink whistles. Since using a pink whistle was not part of my usual pregame routine, I forgot my backup pocket whistle. It was a varsity game, I knew that the table had the arrow under control, and I knew that my partner had his backup pocket whistle, but I still felt totally naked without it. I couldn't wait for halftime to stuff that extra whistle in my pocket.

Some Of Us Work Middle School Games ...
 

Damn right. Our Catholic middle school games don't even have an arrow at the table. Never had. They leave it up to the officials to keep track, and there are a lot of held balls in a middle school game, especially a girls middle school game.

This is how it should be. As others have noted, the official putting his thumbs in the air does not always result in the switching of the arrow. There are a lot of situations where a held ball can be ruled and the arrow would not switch.

I have quarters go by all the time where we don't use the arrow. I don't even remember them anymore. I do remember a game this year where we went three quarters without using it, then had 4 within the first two minutes of the 4th quarter.

I believe your point is that there are several different things that can result in an alternating-possession situation (held ball, simultaneous violations, etc), but as a point of clarification, there is only 1 way for the arrow to be appropriately reversed and that is the completion of an alternating possession throw-in.

It is theoretically impossible to go more than a quarter (or halves if you play that) without using the arrow.

Theoretically, I could start every quarter with a T….

Theoretically, you'd be right.

Actually, it's not. It's theoretically possible to go the entire game without using it.

= comeback of the month. Oh, snap!