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Technical foul

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Technical foul

In basketball, a technical foul (colloquially known as a "T" or a "tech") is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a non-player. The most common technical foul is for unsportsmanlike conduct. Technical fouls can be assessed against players, bench personnel, the entire team (often called a bench technical), or even the crowd. These fouls, and their penalties, are more serious than a personal foul, but not necessarily as serious as a flagrant foul (an ejectable offense in leagues below the National Basketball Association (NBA), and potentially so in the NBA).

Technical fouls are handled slightly differently under international rules than under the rules used by the various competitions in the United States. First, illegal contact between players on the court is always a personal foul under international rules, whereas in the United States, such contact is, with some exceptions, a technical foul when the game clock is not running or when the ball is dead. Second, in FIBA play (except for the half-court 3x3 variant, in which individual personal foul counts are not kept), players foul out after five total fouls, technical and personal combined (since 2014, one technical can be included towards the total; committing another risks immediate ejection). The latter rule is similar to that in college, high school, and middle school basketball in the United States. However, in leagues that play 48-minute games such as the NBA, and in some leagues such as the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), players are allowed six personal fouls before being disqualified, and technical fouls assessed against them do not count toward this total. However, unsportsmanlike technicals in the (W)NBA carry a fine, its severity depending on the number of technicals the player has already obtained, and players are suspended for varying amounts of time after accumulating sixteen technicals in the regular season or seven in the playoffs.

In most American competitions, ejection of the offender, that of the player, coach, or otherwise, is the penalty for being assessed two technical fouls in a game, if charged directly to him/her (some technicals committed by a player are charged to the team only). In addition, any single flagrant technical foul, or a disqualifying foul in FIBA and NCAA women's play, incurs ejection. FIBA rules call for ejection for two non-flagrant technicals (known as unsportsmanlike fouls under that body's rules; the term is also used in NCAA women's rules) against a player. FIBA rules call for ejection when a coach draws two technicals, or a third is called on the bench. In the NBA, there are certain technical fouls that cannot involve an ejection.

Many infractions can result in the calling of a technical foul. One of the most common is the use of profane language toward an official or another player. This can be called on either players who are currently active in the play of the game, or seated on a team's bench. It can also be assessed to a coach or another person associated with the team in an official capacity such as a trainer or an equipment manager. Additionally, coaches or players can be assessed a technical foul for disputing an official's call too vehemently, with or without the use of profanity. This verbal unsporting technical foul may be assessed regardless of whether the ball is dead or alive.

Other offenses can result in technical fouls, such as:

Violations of the rules for delaying the game (in the NBA, NCAA, and NFHS) usually incur a team warning for a first offense, followed by a team technical, or sometimes a player technical, if the same team delays a second time. From 2023–24, NCAA women's rules explicitly call for delay of game to be a team warning on the first offense and a team technical thereafter. This includes:

and more technical issues, such as:

The NBA has an Illegal Defense rule. Until 2001, it was designed to stop defenders from dropping back into a zone and thus preventing drives to the basket. The penalty, after a warning, was a technical foul charged to the offending team and one shot for the offense, except that if the first violation occurred within 24 seconds of the end of a period, the technical was assessed without warning.

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