Information to the coach
 

I was R2 on Friday and had a situation that I'd like feedback on. Coach A takes her first time-out of the set. At the end of the time-out, Coach B holds up 2 fingers and -- I thought -- asked me if he still has both of his time-outs. I told him "yes".

After a second or two, I realized that he was actually asking me if Coach A had used both of her time-outs for the set.

At this point, I've put myself in a no-win situation. I can either (a) allow him to continue to believe that Coach A has no time-outs left -- which will surely cause a problem when she inevitably takes her second time-out later in the set; or (b) correct the misunderstanding -- which requires me to give him information that he's not really supposed to get from me.

So help me out, please:

1) Should I have answered Coach B's question in the first place? If a coach asks about his/her remaining TO's, is that information that the R2 should provide?

2) Once I've given misleading information, what do I do about it: (a) or (b) above.

3) I chose (b).

The coach is allowed to ask how many time-outs and substitutions remain in the set. The R2 is responsible for providing this info to the coach.

I would have done the same thing that you did.

This is a preventative measure to prevent an improper request sanction on the team, however, the requests cannot be excessive.

I believe the original post referred to the coach asking about how many timeouts the *other* team has used. Did I misunderstand?

Scrapper, your first mistake was in trying to tell the coach how many time-outs he had left: we NEVER tell any coach how many time-outs are left. We only tell a coach how many time-outs have been used. And usually we only communicate with the coach following their second time-out.

However, since you provided erroneous information, it should be corrected.

I usually don't provide information regarding the other team to coaches, unless there's a discrepancy that might result in a protestable situation. If the coach asked, perhaps telling the coach, "I'll signal at the end of the time out" might have helped the situation. However, since you decided to answer...if you give erroneous information, you should probably correct it.

Is there some rationale for this, or is it just because that's always the way we've done it. It seems like a pretty silly distinction to me. If a coach asks, "Do I have a time-out left?", are you really going to say, "I can't tell you that, Coach; but you've used one so far"?

I think it comes from the wording in the book, R2's responsibilities are to signal how many times outs have been used. 5.4.3.b13
13. Signal at the completion of a charged time-out, how many time-outs each team has used

I think the point is to be consistent and always give how many have been used in an attempt to limit the confusion. That being said if a coach asks me "Do I have a time out left?" I am going to say yes or no depending on the situation. But when I tell them after they take a time out, I'm going to say "Coach you have used one time out"

Ok, this makes much more sense to me than to say we "never" do it that way. I understand wanting the signal to be consistent. That makes sense.

But if you think about it, a coach doesn't really care how many time-outs s/he has used. The reason a coach wants the information about the time-outs is to know if s/he will be able to take any more in that set.