BASKETBALL NEWS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 271, 29 August 1935, Page 7

BASKETBALL NEWS

THE GAME IN ASHBURTON.

GENERAL RULE CONTROVERSY.

(By “ One of the Girls.”) A rule over which there has been some controversy among basketball players and -eferees throughout the Dominion is the following:— “When the ball goes out of bounds the player who last' touched the ball shall be held responsible for its going out.”

There is no rule in basketball which is, perhaps, so hard for officials to interpret in an actual game—yet so easy to read in the rule book. In a melee under the goal post, when six pairs of hands are reaching for possession, it may be quite, simple actually to detect a hand pushing the .ball out of bounds, but to connect the hand with a uniform is a different matter. Generally, it is understood that it is in the best interests of the attacking side to keep the ball in play, but it is when the hall goes out accidentally through the hands of the attacker that it seems a hard penally. A defender may deflect a pass which just touches a forward’s hands and goes out. Then, of course, the penalty is given against the forwards’ side., though actually the defender propelled the ball in its flight out. Then again, a forward may have just got her hands to the hall and a defender knocks it over the line. Actually! to decide who last made contact with the ball would be an impossibility because the defender may have still held the ball with the tips of her fingers every after the defender had taken her hand away.

So on a literal interpretation of the rule a side may feel wrongly penalised, but the saving grace so far as an official is concerned is in the use of the advantage rule: “The referee shall refrain from penalising an infringement in cases where he is satisfied that by so doing he will be placing at a disadvantage the non-offending team.”