TO Situation

[eme]

Team A trails by one as 15 seconds remain in the game. Flag down for a slash by B1 and ball is in A's attack goal area. Ball becomes loose as clock continues to go down. Team A coach would love nothing more at this moment than a TO.

Rules are clear he can't call one until A possession or the next whistle (ball leaves attack goal area).

Is this a weakness in the new flag-down situation for ncaa play?

[laxfan25]

Team A trails by one as 15 seconds remain in the game. Flag down for a slash by B1 and ball is in A's attack goal area. Ball becomes loose as clock continues to go down. Team A coach would love nothing more at this moment than a TO.

Rules are clear he can't call one until A possession or the next whistle (ball leaves attack goal area).

Is this a weakness in the new flag-down situation for ncaa play?
Not really a weakness, but a consideration.
1) Should have called TO after the slash and before A1 dropped it.
2) Have one of his players push B with the ball loose to kill the play on - no time served and get possession with a chance for the TO.
3) Let B pick it up - immediate whistle. TO.

[LaxRef]

I agree that there are things Team A can do to kill the play. However, I don't think this is the same as the coach having the ability to call a TO, since it's not so easy to communicate to his players "Take a loose ball push to kill the play!"

However, coach A can call for a timeout. That's a technical foul by team A, which kills the play. This just requires the officials to be sharp enough to blow the whistle even though sometimes they intentionally don't "hear" an illegal timeout request.