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UMASS Student denied $10K for made half court shot. Promo Company said his foot was on the line

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UMass student’s $10,000 half-court swish negated by mere inches​


A foot on the line nullifies big-money shot

dailycollegian.com

UMass student’s $10,000 half-court swish negated by mere inches

Noah Lee fleetingly became $10,000 richer thanks to a half-court snipe at halftime of the UMass women’s basketball game against St. Bonaventure on Wednesday night. It was later decided that Lee, a senior operations and info management major at UMass, had a foot scarcely over the halfway line...
dailycollegian.com
 
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Does anyone know if the guy who hit the half court shot at Rupp Saturday actually got the money?

He was brought out during a timeout for the contest. Missed two shots (he was supposed to get 3 tries) and then the refs came on the court and shooed everyone off. The clock was at 13:08 or something like that, and I’m almost positive someone made a mistake and thought it was a media timeout when it wasn’t. Those things are done during media timeouts because there’s more time. This was just a random full timeout, so there wasn’t enough time to complete the whole thing.

As everyone is leaving the court the guy grabs the ball and just heaves it down the court and it goes in. But with all the commotion I have no clue if he was actually behind the line or not, and if there was supposed to be someone watching to make sure they definitely weren’t doing it because everyone was leaving the court.
 
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GoCats53 said:
Assholes! It was not a cheat just a slight inadvertent mistake.
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Nobody claimed he cheated. Because it does not matter if it was “a cheat.”

The only question is if his feet were behind the line. If not, then he didn’t actually complete the task and they’re quite legally justified in denying payment.
 
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bbncal02 said:
Except there was seemingly nothing in the rules about foot being on or slightly beyond the line. They owe him 10k.
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What do you think half court shot means? If your feet ain’t behind the line then it ain’t really a half court shot. Do we give people credit for three point shots if their feet are just a little bit over on the line? Of course not. You don’t get “almost” credit, you either are behind the line or you’re not.

I doubt it’s worth the negative publicity to be such hard asses about this, but they are justified factually.
 
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UK90 said:
Nobody claimed he cheated. Because it does not matter if it was “a cheat.”

The only question is if his feet were behind the line. If not, then he didn’t actually complete the task and they’re quite legally justified in denying payment.
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Except they stopped the contest with time left because they said he completed the task. He still had time.
 
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UK90 said:
What do you think half court shot means? If your feet ain’t behind the line then it ain’t really a half court shot. Do we give people credit for three point shots if their feet are just a little bit over on the line? Of course not. You don’t get “almost” credit, you either are behind the line or you’re not.

I doubt it’s worth the negative publicity to be such hard asses about this, but they are justified factually.
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In all my years of watching basketball I’ve never seen a “halfcourt shot” defined as feet behind the half court line. Why would there even be a rule for this? It’s not extra points.
 
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UK90 said:
What do you think half court shot means? If your feet ain’t behind the line then it ain’t really a half court shot. Do we give people credit for three point shots if their feet are just a little bit over on the line? Of course not. You don’t get “almost” credit, you either are behind the line or you’re not.

I doubt it’s worth the negative publicity to be such hard asses about this, but they are justified factually.
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Problem is they didn't stipulate that before hand and there's not rules defined half court shot by basketball rule, unlike threes or FTs .

If you're at the midcourt stripe, 99.99% are going to call that a half court shot.

It's 10k, not 1M. Pay him and avoid the negative publicity that's going to cost you waaaay more than 10k. But leave it to an insurance company not to want to pay out.
 
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TheDude73 said:
In all my years of watching basketball I’ve never seen a “halfcourt shot” defined as feet behind the half court line.
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Really, then how would you define it? A free throw means feet behind the FT line, a three point shot means feet behind the three point line, but a half court shot just means anything kinda close to the half court line?
 
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bbncal02 said:
Problem is they didn't stipulate that before hand and there's not rules defined half court shot by basketball rule, unlike threes or FTs .
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I’m sorry, but how do you know this?

The article says he signed a form acknowledging that he read and knew the rules of the contest. And that he was told footage of his shots would be reviewed and that they were “quite strict about foot placement” at the time of release.

That suggests to me that he knew what the deal was.
 
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UK90 said:
Really, then how would you define it? A free throw means feet behind the FT line, a three point shot means feet behind the three point line, but a half court shot just means anything kinda close to the half court line?
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The problem again lies in those other two shots are WELL defined by the rules of the game. A half court shot is loosely defined as a shot at....half court.
 
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true blue1 said:
Rules are rules period.
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What is a half-court shot? Seems to me that at least one foot "should" be on the line. If both feet must be "behind" the line, then "how far" behind the line and at what point does the shot become something different (longer) than a half-court shot. If his foot must be behind the line, then technically it's not a half-court shot, it's something longer. It's reasonable that a half-court shot would require at least one foot to be "on the line". The kid participated in their little dog and pony show and won. I say the clowns at this corrupt insurance company will pay one way or the other.
 
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UK90 said:
I’m sorry, but how do you know this?

The article states that the kid signed a form beforehand acknowledging that he read and knew the rules of the contest. And that he was told footage of his shots would be reviewed and they were “quite strict” about “foot placement” at the time of release.

That sure suggests to me that he knew what the deal was.
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There's a couple of other articles where the contestant said he wasn't informed until the day after. Which, tbh, doesn't surprise me. The Foundation the insurance company manages if worth nearly 1.5 BILLION. So, 10k is like, it's 0.000667% of their worth.

Insanity that they're being this much of a prick about it. It's also not the first person to be screwed over by a company not wanting to pay out after hitting a half court shot either.
 
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I can see this both ways, initially, but ultimately there is only one answer. As someone who played a lot of competitive sports (including basketball) it annoys the shit out of me when so many of the people taking these promo shots blatantly step over the line.

But I do have to remind myself...they're just not used to it and they're probably not very coordinated.

And, as others have said above...given that it isn't deliberate cheating, it's an absurd miscalculation by any company to say they aren't paying. No one is going to be cool with that. Horrible PR. Just pay. If you weren't willing to take this risk then don't sign up to do it!
 
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CapnBlubs said:
I can see this both ways, initially, but ultimately there is only one answer. As someone who played a lot of competitive sports (including basketball) it annoys the shit out of me when so many of the people taking these promo shots blatantly step over the line.

But I do have to remind myself...they're just not used to it and they're probably not very coordinated.

And, as others have said above...given that it isn't deliberate cheating, it's an absurd miscalculation by any company to say they aren't paying. No one is going to be cool with that. Horrible PR. Just pay. If you weren't willing to take this risk then don't sign up to do it!
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The kicker is they're getting to define what is a half court shot, after the fact, when there is no defined shot in basketball rules. It's just a really long 3 pointer. If he stepped on the 3pt line, no argument and I don't think anyone would complain. But since there's not true agreed upon definition of a half court shot, they should just pay up.
 
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What a dumb company.

They are penalizing a guy for an inadvertent error of two inches, which at the relevant scale is a .00000000000001% difference.

They are saving ten thousand dollars but probably losing fifty times that much. Don’t they remember they got involved in this for advertising? If I were in that area I would swear off using that company forever for a dick move like that.
 
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When I was 14 I got to shoot for a sweet black toyota truck (looked like the one from Back to the Future, see below).
I had 1 minute to make a layup, a free throw, a three pointer, and a half court shot.

Started out strong, hit the layup and the free throw easy. Missed a three, and at that point, realized I had to run down my own miss. Grabbed the ball near the bench, and hit a corner three- the place went crazy. I had about 30 seconds left. Ran to half court and threw up an airball. Got the ball back and made it to half court for one last desperation shot........and hit the backboard but no good.

I've often wondered where that truck ended up 🤣

Back-To-The-Future-Marty-s-Toyota-SR5-Pickup-Truck-license-plate-replica-2.jpg
 
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If they didn't make it clear before the shot, then they're in the wrong.

Either way, this happens like every couple of years. And the company always looks like an A-Hole. They get a ton of back lash. And they eventually cave.
 
This actually might be brilliant but dastardly marketing by the promotions company. They can tell NIL programs they’ll never have to pay out prizes and the promotions company is willing to be the bad guy in the public’s eye.
 
UK90 said:
Nobody claimed he cheated. Because it does not matter if it was “a cheat.”

The only question is if his feet were behind the line. If not, then he didn’t actually complete the task and they’re quite legally justified in denying payment.
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Do u work for am insurance company. Pay the kid.
 
bbncal02 said:
The kicker is they're getting to define what is a half court shot, after the fact, when there is no defined shot in basketball rules. It's just a really long 3 pointer. If he stepped on the 3pt line, no argument and I don't think anyone would complain. But since there's not true agreed upon definition of a half court shot, they should just pay up.
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Exactly. A foot on the halfcourt line is still a shot from halfcourt.
 
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UK90 said:
What do you think half court shot means? If your feet ain’t behind the line then it ain’t really a half court shot. Do we give people credit for three point shots if their feet are just a little bit over on the line? Of course not. You don’t get “almost” credit, you either are behind the line or you’re not.

I doubt it’s worth the negative publicity to be such hard asses about this, but they are justified factually.
Click to expand...
So how far out was the layup defined by? Could he have jumped from behind the free throw line and laid it in and knocked out two of the shots at once? Layups and half court shots aren’t defined by rules in the game. They’re actions and in an area. If you get trapped at the line on either side, you’d be trapped at half court. If we call one side the back court and the other side the front court then the actual line itself has to be half court. Rules should have stated from behind half court.
 
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fisherscatfan said:
Except they stopped the contest with time left because they said he completed the task. He still had time.
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This is what will get him the money. These promotions where they keep trying to avoid paying the money are getting ridiculous. It's just $10k, which isn't worth the combo of bad publicity and potential legal fees that are coming if they don't pay it.
 
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What a stupid and short-sighted decision by Odds On Promotions. Unless they are about to go out of business then 10k should be a drop in the bucket, definitely not worth all the hate and bad press.
 
Bluesbrother said:
What is a half-court shot? Seems to me that at least one foot "should" be on the line. If both feet must be "behind" the line, then "how far" behind the line and at what point does the shot become something different (longer) than a half-court shot. If his foot must be behind the line, then technically it's not a half-court shot, it's something longer. It's reasonable that a half-court shot would require at least one foot to be "on the line". The kid participated in their little dog and pony show and won. I say the clowns at this corrupt insurance company will pay one way or the other.
Click to expand...
Good point.
 
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