In Tom Murphy’s article on Georgia’s loss to A&M, there is this quote from the Georgia coach:
“It was unfortunate that when J.J. Frazier looked at the game clock, he saw time that evidently did not exist. It was unfortunate that our players were not able to determine the ultimate outcome of the game and play until the clock hit zero.”
Why on earth would a player be looking at the clock when the play started with 5.6 seconds left?
The play started with 16 seconds, he passed the ball, got it back and looked to see how much time he had, problem was the clock had stopped prior to him getting the ball back.
Well, if that is correct, I am just wrong. Thought they took the ball out on the side with that amount of time remaining.
Just went back and checked and you are correct.
That was one of the things that was so strange. Its not that they failed to START the clock after an out of bounds play, it is they STOPPED the clock in the middle of the play.
Has A&M ever explained what happened to cause that?
The article he mentioned in the post above says the official’s time piece on his belt malfunctioned
So an official on the court starts and stops the clock with something on his belt? I had no idea. I thought there was a “time keeper” at the scorers table that started and stopped the clock.
I did to. I’ve actually kept time before and I wasn’t on the court wearing stripes.
As I understand it, there is still a timekeeper at the scorers table, but the on-court refs also have the capability through the belt pack. There was a problem with the belt pack at a Michigan State game in November that may have also affected the outcome: <LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/stor … /94223860/”>http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/sports/college/msu/mens-basketball/2016/11/21/big-ten-game-official-started-clock-too-early-michigan-state/94223860/</LINK_TEXT>
Basically, the belt pack senses the ref’s whistle and instantaneously signals to start or stop the clock. It’s supposed to eliminate the delayed reaction of a human timekeeper hitting a switch to start/stop.
http://www.precisiontime.com/how.htm
If you watch closely, when the final minute arrives, there is an official that makes a motion and at that time, he’s going to stop the clock on plays. It also stops automatically on a whistle. It’s been this way for several years. Apparently, the official bumped the piece or it just didn’t work correctly.