Bad Time for the Clock to Stop
 

This happened in my game tonight, High School Varsity Boys. Visitors make a basket to pull within 3 with time running out. They do not have any timeouts remaining. Ball goes through the basket home team takes the ball to inbound. I am the lead-becoming new trail. I start my count and I see 5.3 seconds on the clock. I get to 5 seconds the only problem is that the timer for some reason stopped the clock at 1.6! What do you do? I will wait for some responses before I share what our crew did.

If you mean you saw 5.3 at the start of your count you put .3 on the clock and give the ball to Team B. If you mean you saw the 5.3 at some point during the count, do the math and put up the appropriate number.

We've discussed this exact situation many times before on this forum. It is an obvious timing mistake which can be corrected by the referee through definite knowledge obtained by an official's count.
It isn't a convenient time for a timing error, but it should be handled just as if it occurred during the second quarter.

First of all, good move on the part of the scoring team. It's kind of like a football team up by more than two taking a safety in the closing seconds when they're backed up near their own goal line.

But I digress. OP had a five second violation, correct? If so, Nevadaref is spot-on. 5.3 - 5 = 0.3. If anything, officials tend to count a little slower than real time, so you can say with conservative confidence that at least five seconds ticked off.

True, we talk about this kind of situation a lot. But it happens all the time, and there are a lot of opinions on how to handle it (many of them not in accordance with the rules, unfortunately). So it needs to be discussed often.

We put 0.3 on the clock and gave the ball to Team B.

And then they tapped in a three-pointer to tie it up, right? :D

5.10.1e

Fortunately NO!

Let's Go to The Videotape ...
 

5.10.1 SITUATION E: Team A scores a goal to lead by four points with 10 seconds
remaining in the fourth quarter. Team B then quickly scores with approximately
five seconds remaining; now trailing by two points. Team A expects to
withhold the ball out of bounds for the throw-in with the time remaining (less
than five seconds). The timer mistakenly stops the clock shortly following the
Team B goal; the game clock reads 4.0 seconds remaining. The official sounds
the whistle, (a) immediately to address the timing mistake; (b) after reaching a
throw-in count of three to address the timing mistake; or (c) upon reaching a fivesecond
throw-in count on Team A. RULING: In (a) and (b), Team A will have a
throw-in from anywhere along the end line with (a) no change to the game clock;
and (b) the game clock corrected to display 1.0 seconds. In (c), the game is over
as time has expired. COMMENT: An official’s count may be used to correct a timing
mistake. (5-10-2)

So would this be a mistake on the official's part? Say the home team scores with 8 seconds left and they trail by 1 with no timeouts left. The home team scorer (innocently) stops the clock anticipating a timeout, or (not so innocently) stops it just to stop it.

A good official's gonna look at the clock once the ball goes through. But if he sees it FREEZE at 8 seconds, should he wait a brief reasonable amount of time, say, 3 seconds, before starting his count? Then maybe when he gets to 4 blow the whistle to fix the clock?

It just seems odd that if you fix it right away, you are putting one team at a major disadvantage, and, worst case scenario, rewarding possible shenanigans.

I know the casebook says to ignore an intentional Delay of Game by a player who's just trying to get the clock stopped at the end of the game. Shouldn't we also then ignore a possible delay by the clock operator?

The clock is running, so how sure are you that u see exactly 5.3 seconds? Did u look exactly simultaneous with the start of your count? I'm not sure you could be 100% certain of 5.3. I think it's entirely possible, that a few tenths could have ran off before u saw 5.3, and then u may have counted to 5 a half second early, and the clock could in fact be pretty close to accurate. Do you know they stopped it early, or was it after you blew your whistle? If you do know, how do you know, because I'm sure after the initial glance, you didn't look again until after your whistle blew.

The one thing we do know is that it was wrong for the clock to stop. It won't be perfect, but you correct it best you can.

The officials don't have a video replay monitor or atomic clocks in their heads. If the timer screws up, the officials can only do their human best to correct it.
ALL of the blame in such situations goes to the timer.

I'm asking are u sure the timer screwed up? He looks up after he starts his count and sees 5.3 (so, maybe ~5.8 when he started), then he counts a little fast (~4.5 seconds), that gives u 1.3. Pretty close to 1.6. The OP never said the clock stopped before his whistle, just that he looked up and saw the clock stopped at 1.6. I don't think there was definite knowledge of any error. I don't think one can accurately mark a running clock to the tenths of a second. And, who knows what the visible count was? 4.9, 5.1, 4.5, 5.5?

If he knows the timer stopped it before his whistle, then ok, fix it. Otherwise, like you said, no atomic clock in his head, the time may have continued to run until he blew his whistle. I.e., no error.

Thank you for clarifying. Perhaps the OP will return and answer the questions you've posed.