I wanted to understand what a flagrant foul was after the call against Scott Wood last night so I pulled up a copy of the NCAA rules. Which can be found at http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/BR11.pdf
It is 184 pages long. 184 pages. Maybe I am hopelessly naive but how is it possible that a game 7 year old children can play in the driveway can fill 184 pages. This reminds me of how the government makes everything more complicated than it has to be. But being a glutton for punishment I decided to look into it a little more and see what all of these rules look like. I paged down to rule 7 entitled “out of bounds”. Should be simple right? No, it is five pages with 6 sections and 32 articles. This is for the ball going out of bounds. 5 pages. But then I realized I was getting side tracked as all I wanted was a definition of a flagrant foul.
So I did a search on “flagrant” as I did not want to read through 182 pages. There are 151 references to the word “flagrant” in the NCAA rule book. Holy cow, all I wanted was to understand what a flagrant foul is. But now I am feeling stubborn and am determined to figure this out. Here is what I think I found for a definition
Flagrant personal foul, live ball. A flagrant personal foul shall be
a personal foul that involves severe contact with an opponent or
involves contact that is extreme in nature while the ball is live.
That seems rather vague especially given the discussions the talking heads have about “wrapping a player up” and the type A and B technical fouls. There must be some more information in that 152 pages that will clarify this issue. I then came across a definition of a flagrant technical foul
Flagrant technical foul. A flagrant technical foul can be either contact
or non-contact.
1. A flagrant contact technical foul occurs when the ball is dead and
the contact is severe (serious, deliberate) or extreme (applied to
the greatest degree).
a. An exception may be a foul committed by an airborne
shooter.
2. A flagrant non-contact technical foul is an infraction that involves
extreme, sometimes persistent, vulgar, abusive conduct and
occurs during either a live or dead ball.
So I feel like I am getting somewhere. I now have some definitions but to be thorough I decide to look at all 151 references to “flagrant”. As I am scanning (as I have a job it is impossible to read the whole 181 pages) I come across what appears to be another definition
Art. 15. A player shall not flagrantly or excessively contact an opponent
while the ball is live (includes fighting)
This is under the definition of a foul. So flagrant contact is a foul but not necessarily a flagrant foul. Now I am starting to get confused. So if flagrant contact is a foul when is flagrant contact a flagrant foul? I get down to the section on technical fouls so I feel I should get some clarity now. One of the articles on the definition of technical foul says
Art. 16. A player flagrantly or excessively contacting an opponent while
the ball is dead.
So it appears if the ball is dead then the same contact that was a regular foul is now a technical foul. That is still pretty vague so I keep reading the technical foul section and I find section 5 (Class A technical foul) and section 6 (Class B technical foul). This must be what the announcers were referring to last night. Under section 5 on page 135 (class A) the rule states:
Art. 1. A player or substitute committing an unsportsmanlike act including,
but not limited to, the following:
a. Disrespectfully addressing or contacting an official or gesturing in
such a manner as to indicate resentment.
b. Using profanity or vulgarity; taunting, baiting or ridiculing another
player or bench personnel; or pointing a finger at or making obscene
gestures toward another player or bench personnel.
c. Inciting undesirable crowd reaction.
d. Contacting an opponent, while the ball is dead, in an unnecessary,
unacceptable and excessive manner.
e. Flagrantly (severe or extreme) contacting an opponent while the ball
is dead.
f. A flagrant non-contact infraction that involves extreme, sometimes
persistent, vulgar, abusive conduct when the ball is dead or live.
g. Participating after having been disqualified (non-contact flagrant
technical).
h. Leaving the playing court and going into the stands when a fight may
break out or has broken out (flagrant non-contact infraction).
i. Fighting as in Rule 4-26
So according to the written rules it is impossible for anyone to get a class A technical if the ball is live and there is contact. The penalty for class A is 2 FTs and the ball. It does say it is not limited to those rules but anything else is completely subjective. So I looked at the rules for a class B and it says:
Section 6. (Men) CLASS B TECHNICAL INFRACTIONS
Art. 1. A technical foul shall be assessed to a player or a substitute for the
following infractions:
a. Purposely obstructing an opponent’s vision by waving or placing
hand(s) near his eyes.
b. Climbing on or lifting a teammate to secure greater height.
c. Knowingly attempting a free throw to which he is not entitled.
d. Possessing or using tobacco.138 Rule 10 / foulsand penalties
e. A team member dunking or attempting to dunk a dead ball before or
during the game, or during any intermission.
f. Grasping either basket in an excessive, emphatic manner during the
officials’ jurisdiction when the player is not, in the judgment of an
official, trying to prevent an obvious injury to self or others.
g. Intentionally slapping or striking the backboard or causing either the
backboard or ring to vibrate while the ball is in flight during a try, or
while the ball is touching the backboard, is on the basket ring, in the
basket net or in the cylinder.
h. Placing a hand(s) on the backboard or ring to gain an advantage.
i. Touching a ball in flight (goaltending) during a free throw.
j. Reaching through the throw-in boundary-line plane and touching or
dislodging the ball while it is in possession of the thrower or being
passed to a teammate outside the boundary line as in Rule 7-5.6.b.
k. Deceptively leaving the playing court for an unauthorized reason and
returning at a more advantageous position.
l. Purposely delaying his return to the playing court after being legally
out of bounds.
m. After a team warning has been issued, attempting to gain an advantage
by interfering with the ball after a goal or failing to immediately pass
the ball to the nearest official after the whistle had been blown.
n. A team member entering the playing court without reporting to the
official scorers or a substitute entering the playing court without
being beckoned by an official (unless during an intermission).
o. Participating after changing his uniform number without reporting
the change to the official scorer and a game official.
p. Opponents of the thrower-in shall not repeatedly have any part of
their person beyond the vertical inside plane of any boundary line
before the ball has crossed that boundary line. (See Rule 9-5.3.
I see nothing in here that pertains to the call last night so I am again in search of the definition. I have finally found the section for “Intentional Personal Fouling”. Now I am getting somewhere, it reads:
Section 4. Intentional Personal Fouling
Guidelines for calling the intentional personal foul are:
a. Any personal foul that is not a legitimate attempt to directly play the ball
or a player is an intentional personal foul.
b. Running into the back of a player who has the ball, wrapping the arm(s)
around a player and grabbing a player around the torso or legs are
intentional personal fouls.
c. Grabbing a player’s arm or body while initially attempting to gain
control by playing the ball directly is an intentional personal foul.
d. Grabbing, holding or pushing a player away from the ball is an
intentional personal foul.
e. Undue roughness used to stop the game clock is an intentional personal
foul and, if severe, should be called a flagrant personal foul.
f. It is an intentional personal foul when, while playing the ball, a player
causes excessive contact with an opponent.
The intentional personal foul must be called within the spirit and
intent of the intentional-foul rule
Now I have a definition but again it seems pretty vague and can be used for about half of the fouls called during a game. I am about to give up as it seems that is the best definition I am going to get but then I happen to notice on page 152 the appendix IV labeled “foul/penalty chart”. I feel a little excitement as it seems I am about to find the ever elusive definition. Here I see both intentional and flagrant personal fouls listed. This must be the two types of fouls the announcers drone on about.
Intentional Personal says
An act that is not a legitimate attempt to play the ball or player. Not based on severity, but is excessive.
Flagrant Personal says
Severe or extreme contact with an opponent during live ball only
The penalty for the intentional is 2FTs and the ball. The flagrant adds an ejection for the offending player. But then I see a Flagrant Tecchnical Foul It is defined as
Extreme unsporting conduct (noncontact) during a live ball or severe/extreme contact with an opponent during a dead ball
It has the same penalty as the Flagrant foul.
I have no idea if anyone is brave enough to read all of this. Frankly I did not intend it to be this long as I was just trying to define what a flagrant foul is. And what did I learn?
1) The rules are so long and convoluted it is impossible to determine exactly what rule should have applied to the Wood foul last night. The closes I can get to it is the intentional foul call but that says it has to be excessive and that foul was hardly excessive.
2) The NCAA has gotten out of hand with the rules. How can anyone be expected to know all 181 pages of these rules? They are vague and hard to understand.
3) The announcers do not know what they are talking about. There is no class A and B flagrant foul.
4) I cannot type. I mistyped the word l about 25 times in this article including the one in this sentence.
