A player is fouled while shooting and gets 2 shots. She (this was a high school girls’ game if that matters) makes the first one and a coach calls timeout. After the timeout, she goes back to the line and the referee mistakenly holds up 2 fingers and says “2 shots”. No one catches the mistake. The shooter misses the freethrow but gets the rebound, puts a shot back up and makes it. The other girls are still standing on the line thinking another shot is coming. Does the shot count?
FWIW, they counted the shot and the ref admitted he made a mistake. Fortunately, it didn’t change the outcome of the game.
Yes. Obviously the girl taking the shots had the presence of mind to realize the mistake, otherwise she wouldn’t have taken the shot. The girls on the other team should have too.
No. I’d have to disagree. You’re penalinzing the other team for a mistake made by the ref. On the court, the ref’s word, unless it is challenged at the time, is law. What should have been done is a jump ball. The shooter did MISS her shot, which means there would have been a rebound.
Yes, but the players are supposed to have the presence of mind to keep track of these things. Sort of unfair, yes. It reminds me of what happened to Venus Williams at Wimbledon last year. The official was the one who screwed up, but the players are supposed to be paying attention.
There’s a rule in basketball about something called “correctable errors”. They are things like awarding the wrong player a free throw or giving someone two shots when they should just have one.
The officials can go back and fix the mistakes if they do it before the clock starts after the next ball after the error.
In the case in the OP, there wouldn’t be any need to fix the error since the shooter essentially fixed it herself. If the officials stopped play after the basket and realized they screwed up, they can’t change anything.
I don’t know the rule in basketball, but the Williams matter in tennis is clear.
With a few exceptions, any mistake discovered after play resumes stands. If basketball has the same principle, then an additional free throw would be required not a two-point rebound goal.
Not really. The other team didn’t defend her because they thought there was another free throw coming. She may have not made the shot or even got the rebound if she was being contested. The shooter did the right thing but the defense was following the lead of the ref.
Yeah, but how do you miss that? How do you not realize that she only had 1 more shot after the timeout and the ref said 2? The players on the other team clearly did not have their heads in the game, and suffered for it. If they had mistakenly called a timeout when they had none they’d get a technical foul, albeit their assumption was the fault of the ref, but still, they didn’t have their heads in the game, and you’ve got to be paying better attention and tell the ref there aren’t 2 shots left.
Also, after she made the shot, I assume she didn’t get a 3rd shot because once she made it the ref and everyone else realized the blunder, otherwise that shot wouldn’t have counted if she had another one coming.
The situation seems pretty cut and dried to me. The officials can go back and correct certain mistakes if they do it before the second dead ball.
They are mistakes like:
having the wrong player shoot the free throw
awarding an unmerited free throw
failing to award a merited free throw
having a player attempt a free throw at the wrong basket
erroneously cancelling or counting a score
Situation 1 happens the most often I think. The officials get the wrong shooter at the line. If they figure out who it is in time (before the next time the ball is dead), then they cancel the actions that have happened until then and start over with the correct shooter at the line
Situation 2 is something like where the team is awarded two free throws when it should be one-and-one. If the shooter misses the first and then is given the second, there are steps to take to fix it if the officials fix it.
Situation 3 has a situation where something that is the opposite of the OP. Say that the shooting team (Team A) is awarded two free throws. But after the first one is made, the other team (Team B) and the officials forget about the second free throw and Team B takes the ball out of bounds, goes down the court and scores. The remedy is that the team that got shorted a free throw, Team A gets to shoot it (but with no one on the line), Team B’s basket counts and then Team A gets the ball back out of bounds just as if they were taking the ball out after a made basket.
Here’s the other example in the NCAA rule book. Say that Team A is in the bonus and gets fouled. They should shoot free throws, but the officials don’t notice it and give Team A, the ball out of bounds. Team A goes on to score a basket and then complains that they didn’t get their free throws. In this case, the basket counts and then Team A goes to the line to shoot the free throws, although Team B can be on the line to get the rebound.
So going back to the OP, what you have is the awarding of an unmerited free throw. Team A should have had two shots, not three.
The shooter on Team A realized though that it was an error by the officials. She grabbed the rebound and scored. If the officials did not blow the whistle to indicate that the play was dead, the basket has to count. They can stop play and discuss it. But under the rules of basketball, they can’t wipe out the basket if it was scored while the ball was live. If the ball was dead, it’s another matter.
So in the first case Team A was, fouled and awarded a one-and-one, and after missing the first shot, somebody from Team A rebounded it and scored as a result of the inactivity of the players on Team B, which is what happened in this case, so I guess the shot shouldn’t count then.