Studies show that it takes 10,000 hours or 10 years to master a given skill whether it’s playing the piano, learning French, or playing basketball. If you started playing basketball at around 6-7 which is on the young age, that puts you squarely in high school before you start to remove errors from your game. Even then, it’s tough to get the skills down in a high pressured game setting so we are left with high school basketball fouls. Let’s take a quick look at the most common fouls that occur during the course of a prep basketball game.

Some of the fouls typically called in basketball are well-known. Most are specific to the game of basketball itself and quite a few of those deal directly with dribbling which is by far the hardest part of mastering the game of basketball. We’ve got quite a list of potential offending behaviors on the basketball court so let’s get started.

Travelling. Travelling is essentially the act of movement without sufficient or appropriate dribble. If you’re moving outside of your pivot foot, you need to be dribbling with one hand. If you dribble with two hands, that’s also travelling. High school players usually get caught on their first step with too much foot motion or distance covered before takinga dribble. Occasionally they will panic and touch the ball with hands as well. Rarely does a player stop dribbling and start up again but it does happen at this level.

Carrying. When dribbling, you need to have a downward motion on the ball and and not “hold” or “grab” the ball in your hand. This rule has definitely become more laxed at the high school level as any old hoops player is sure to complain about. The tendancy with younger players is to turn the hand over at the top of the dribble and essentially cradle or hold the ball from underneath or more than sideways.

Moving Screens. In high school basketball, you’re allowed to set a screen or pick. This is where you hold your body in place with arms crossed (typically) to provide a barrier for your teammate to run around and block his/her defender. The trick is that you must remain still and let the offensive player come into you. You cannot move once the pick is set. This is tricky since the entire floor is in motion during a typical high school basketball game. For this reason, there’s a subjective call on whether a screen is truly set or moving.

Offensive foul. When driving with the ball or with your back to the basket in a post move, the benefit of the doubt usually goes to the offensive player if there is too much contact but this isn’t always the case. If the offensive player is overly aggressive such as dropping their shoulder or being out of control, the offensive foul may be called on them. This is especially true if the defensive player hasn’t move and is deemed to have position. You can’t go through a defensive player that’s already in position (not moving).

There are various offensive fouls resulting from time constraints in the game with the big one being 3 seconds in the key. As an offensive player, you cannot just go down into the key and loiter there indefinitely. You must remove your feet before 3 seconds is counted or you will be called and the ball will change possession to the other team. Other time constraints such as inbounding the ball or bringing the ball over half court can also result in the offense losing the ball. This is true for the shot clock as well which does happen during high school basketball games as a team is unable to get off a shot in time.

There are strange and less-seen offensive fouls that get called but the above list show the most common you’re likely to see in a typical high school basketball game.

Dennis Jarvis writes about high school sports and prep sports with fantasy league at http://www.prepsportfantasy.com including high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Dennis Jarvis writes about high school sports and prep sports with fantasy league at http://www.prepsportfantasy.com including high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Author Bio: Dennis Jarvis writes about high school sports and prep sports with fantasy league at http://www.prepsportfantasy.com including high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Category: Sports
Keywords: high school basketball, high school sports, prep basketball, prep sports,basketball season