Expert: Bret Temple - 4/20/2011

Question
HI Bret,

I have a question about a situation that happened in a high school game. A player got fouled while dribbling up the floor. It was the defensive team's 7th team foul, but the scorekeeper neglected to inform the officials the team was in bonus, and awarded the team the ball out of bounds instead of 1 and 1 free-throws. The player inbounded the ball, and proceeded to drive to the basket and score a layup. The coach realized his player should have shot bonus freethrows on the previous foul and brought that to the attention of the officials. What should have happened? Shouldn't the layup be waived off?

Answer
Hi Michael,

Wow, this is a situation that never should have happened. Officials at the high school level should know when a team is in bonus even before it happens by occasionally checking with the scorekeeper to find out how many team fouls each team has. However, mistakes do happen.  As long as the mistake was discovered before the team inbounded the ball after the made basket it's a correctable error. In this case, the basket DOES NOT get waived off. The only time a basket ever gets waived off is in the event of a player controll foul or a violation. The basket counts, and the player who got fouled previously is awarded his/her bonus 1 and 1 free-throws with no players lined up along the lane. The reason is, whether the bonus free-throws are good or missed doesn't matter. The ball is automatically awarded to the team opposite of the team who made the layup, and gets a throw in from anywhere along the baseline, just like after any made basket. Play continues as normal.

I hope that cleared it up for you.