Anyone know a lot about college basketball here? I feel like I know it fairly well for a fan but I can’t figure out this call.
It’s from an NCAA basketball game between U of Minnesota (maroon) and Butler U (white) a couple days ago in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). A Minnesota player airballs a jumpshot which goes out of bounds. UM players claim in was touched by a BU player trying to block the shot so it should remain UM ball.
Replays clearly show that yes, the Butler dude did defect the shot just a tad. So it’s Minnesota ball, right?
I say, “No, of course not!” because the last person to touch the ball was not the UM shooter or the BU defender but a different UM player who jumped out of bounds to try to save it but failed because A) he was standing out of bounds when he touched it and B) he didn’t get the ball back in bounds anyway.
I am trying to figure out what happened here. Why did the refs give the ball to Minnesota? And why did the announcers not even mention once the player out of bounds trying to save it?
Is there some out of bounds rule that I have somehow never heard of my whole life?
I agree with you. I’m a long time season ticket holder of both mens’ and womens’ D1 teams. And I watch a lot of ball on TV. That said, I am not, nor have I ever been, a ref.
The only thing I can think of is, everyone got so caught up in whether or not the ball was partially blocked that they forgot about the out of bounds player that clearly touched it in flight, and even bounced it on the out of bounds part of the floor. I think they just screwed up.
To your last question, there is no special “out of bounds rule” that comes into play here. They just screwed up the call.
It is odd though that the TV guys AND the Butler coach apparently didn’t think of it either. Plus, out of bounds isn’t reviewable until the last two minutes (maybe last minute, not sure) of the game, and they were at 2:13 I think.
Yeah. I guess that could have happened. But the Butler players and the coaches were vociferously complaining and I’m sure made it very clear what they saw happen. And, even if what you mention is the reason, it doesn’t explain why the announcers, including an ex-Big 10 coach (Tom Crean), didn’t say one word about the out of bounds (OOB) player trying for and touching the ball while OOB and they replayed the sequence about five times.
Everyone makes mistakes. Referees make mistakes. Plenty of mistakes are understandable, if still wrong. For example, using poor judgement on a foul call, being screened from seeing someone foul or double-dribble or something. But some mistakes are so obvious and fundamental that it’s hard to see how it could ever happen at this level of officiating.
Maybe a bigger and better question is: people love to rehash and blab about every single play of every game in every sport everywhere. Why isn’t anyone talking about this?
I really feel this is so plainly a huge mistake that I have to wonder if I am somehow missing something. Because anyone at all that has watched a basketball game can see that something very odd happened there.
I wonder this is a case where the more basketball games you’ve seen, the more likely you are to miss this. The Minnesota player shoots the ball, it misses the backboard and rim, and hits the ground.
When that sort of thing happens, how often does the ball land in bounds? Maybe the refs and commentators have seen this sort of play hundreds of times, and the ball always landed out. As soon as this shot missed, they just assumed it was out, too. They automatically started analyzing what happened before the air ball, instead of what happened afterwards.
The no-call on the out-of-bounds player makes sense to me. Normally in a situation like that, you are trying to do one of two things:
keep the ball in-bounds
bounce the ball off an opposing player so that they are the last one to touch it
He did neither. The ball didn’t touch anyone and it didn’t land in-bounds. He was already out of bounds, so he doesn’t count as the last person to touch it.
Not to my eye. It was still inbounds because it hadn’t touched anything that was out of bounds yet. It bounced inbounds and the next thing it touched was the player trying to save it.
If that player was inbounds, and threw the ball inbounds, play should have continued. I think the refs didn’t catch that when the ball bounced it was still inbounds, it was close, but inbounds.
I haven’t watched the video, but based on the description I think this is the right call.
Let’s consider these hypotheticals:
The UM player shoots the ball, the BU player deflects it. And then…
The UM player is standing OB and simply catches the shot ball and hands it to the ref, making no attempt to save it.
The UM player is laying on the ground injured OB and the shot ball lands on him on it’s way out of bounds.
There’s a UM player on the bench, who is not in the game, he catches the shot ball and tosses it to the ref.
Any of the above 3 scenarios where a BU player is the one touching it OB.
Would any of those cause you to say that the possession should not go back to UM? I don’t think so. Once the ball goes OB (i.e. touches either the floor or a person standing OB) it’s a dead ball. Whether he’s attempting to save the ball or not is irrelevant unless he reaches into play and causes the ball to go OB.
A player standing OB is the same thing as a ball touching the ground or other stationary object OB. The play stops the moment it touches him. And unless he’s causing it to go OB, him touching it is irrelevant.
By rule, unless the NCAA has different rules than the NBA, if one of the 10 players in the game is standing out of bounds and touches the ball, that player “caused it to go OB”. Not the person who threw it to them, or knocked it towards them, or lost control of the ball.
They didn’t mention the shot clock, which, if it had gone off, would have obviated what the “ball savior” was trying to do in any event, but I heard no horn go off or the announcers noting this fact.
The ball lands inbounds from the (possibly tipped) airball shot, and is bouncing out of bounds. A player who is out of bounds (or moving in that direction) tries to keep it inbounds, but fails - the ball hits the floor out of bounds.
If he would have been able to knock the ball back inbounds, then it’s still a live ball. But he’s out of bounds and the ball lands out of bounds, so he is irrelevant to the call. “Who touched it last” is either the shooter or defender, not the guy under the basket trying to keep it in play.
Suppose it’s not a play under the basket. Suppose Minnesota player A is passing the ball to Minnesota player B on the sideline, and a Butler player tips the pass. The ball is heading out of bounds and Minnesota player B dives over the scorer’s table to try to keep the ball in play. He touches the ball but isn’t able to keep it inbounds. Are you saying it’s Butler’s ball because he touched it out of bounds? No, the last person who touched it is either Minnesota player A who threw the pass, or the Butler defender who tipped it.
According to the hypothetical, player B is not out of bounds, being airborne after jumping from inbounds and not touching anything before the ball. Neither Player A or defender have caused the ball to go out of bounds YET. After attempting to throw the ball back inbounds and failing, the ball has now landed out of bounds. The last person to touch the ball is Player B, and it should be Butler’s ball. This is 1.1 and 2.1 in combination.
If, instead, Player B was standing out of bounds (or jumped from out of bounds, which is the same thing according to the rules), 2.2 states he is the player who caused the ball to go out of bounds. Again, Butler’s ball. This is also exactly what happened in the OP. 21 stepped on the line while jumping out of bounds to save the ball. It was out of bounds the moment he touched it.