Over-and-Back Question

Question
Hi Bret,

I witnessed a play in a high school basketball game a few months back that I've been curious about for quite some time and I thought that I would finally seek some further expertise on it. As a former player and coach myself, I've asked coaches, players, officials, etc. about the following scenario and I've received a lot of mixed answers.

So here it is ?The offensive team puts up a shot on their end, it hits the rim and bounces towards the free throw line, the ball glances off the hand of a player on the offensive team, but he does not gain possession and it bounces into the other half of the court without touching any other players from either team. A player on the offensive team, who had just missed the shot, then picks up the ball on the other half of the court. Would this then be over-and-back or has possession not yet been established making it simply a loose ball?

In this instance, it was called over-and-back and I disagreed with it thinking that there was no possession, as possession had to be reestablished after the missed shot. One of my friends sitting nearby thought perhaps possession was carried over from prior to the missed shot, but I was pretty sure that was wrong. Do you have any idea what the correct call would be here? Any sort of help or clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Josh

Answer
Josh you are absolutely correct. once a shot is attempted there is no team control and therefore in your scenario nobody from the offensive team re-gained control in their front court. So if the ball is deflected into the back court then any player on the offensive team may retrieve it legally with
no violation.

i hope that cleared it up for you. thank you for your question