NCAA men’s basketball rules interpreter Ed Bilik has seen pretty much everything during his tenure as secretary-rules editor for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee. But a play during last month’s UCLA-California game tested even the former Springfield College AD’s memory.

The play was controversial because UCLA’s Josh Shipp made a game-winning shot from the baseline with 1.5 seconds remaining to down California. Some people believed that the shot should have been ruled illegal since it appeared to go over the corner of the backboard before swishing through the hoop. If that actually had been the case, officials could have relied on a little-known rule to make a decision.

Bilik said the issue reverts back to 1957, when the committee passed a rule stating that a ball shall be out of bounds when it passes over the backboard from any direction. Though Bilik wasn’t a committee member at the time (he assumed his current duties in 1996), he said the committee made the change because of tactics teams were deploying that created an unfair advantage.

“Before the 1957-58 season, teams were attempting shots or passes from behind and over the top of the backboard,” Bilik said. “They also were positioning players in front of the basket and, from out of bounds, throwing the ball over the top of the backboard to those players. That motivated the rule change since those situations essentially created a play that was indefensible.”

Bilik also cited a basic premise that requires the court to be “free from obstructions.”  “Anything that may interfere with a live ball was identified as an obstruction and defined to be out of bounds,” he said. “The ceiling, and anything hanging from it (other than the basket), was one example of an obstruction that was ruled to be out of bounds.”

Located behind the backboard were obstructions that could interfere with a live ball, such as backboard supports and guidelines. 

“To eliminate any judgment as to whether those obstructions interfered with a live ball, it was ruled that a ball passing over the top of the backboard from any direction was out of bounds,” Bilik said.

While no call was made during the UCLA-California game, the stranger-than-life play sent rules-makers deep into the archives for background on the backboard.