What does it mean when a setter is penalized with a "double"?

Question

what is a double?

Answer 1

when you get caught with a bad set, and you lift the ball with two of your hands, but one gets caught and you lift your hands at a diffrent time, rather than with two hands

Answer 2

A double hit is when you contact the ball with different body parts at different times, usually one hand hitting the ball before the other.  As stated above, most double contacts are caused by the pass being poor and/or the setter arriving late.  Very few double hits are called when the setter is standing in place.  

A very good description of the double hit process above here.  I would just like to add that most referees will call the double hit if the ball is spinning.  They do not see the contact as they should.  And most coaches want the double hit called on the other side of the net when the ball is spinning.  They do not see the contact either.  They only see the spin.  With the fact that they allow multiple contacts on the first ball over the net now, there are fewer double hits called now than ever before.  The referees are supposed to allow ugly and terrible double hits on the the first ball and then call the tiniest little double hit on the second or third contacts.  The only catch on the first double hit being allowed is that it must be one attempt to play the ball.  

Good referees actually watch for the point of contact.  They do not watch the ball get to the point of contact.  They leave the ball and watch the hands before the ball gets there.  That way, the referees could see the point of contact when the ball arrives.

Answer 3

A "Double" is when a player contacts the ball twice in one attempt. Setters get called for this due to not making a good basket with their hands.

When you set, you must receive the ball with fingertips from both hands at the same time. If not, the action of "catching up" with the hand that did not receive the ball will cause a double. If you think of it in slow motion, it becomes understandable.

Now you may be saying that a double is very hard to call if it's such a small window of chance in the ref seeing it. But there are obvious clues; body and hand positioning, angle of body compared to angle of set, etc. that give away a double.

The way to avoid a double call is to practice the correct form with your coach. You may wonder why your coach has you running from all different directions to set and you may think it's silly to hold your hands in front of your face and the coach checking your form, but they do this so that you learn how to set and not get called for these things.

As a coach, I think laziness and mis-education are the culprits of most double and lift calls.

Answer 4

it just means that the setters hands did not contact the ball all the same time. if one hands touches or releases before the other, it like getting an extra pass because technically the setter "set" or "touches" it twice.

you can usually tell if its a double if the set spins a lot.

Answer 5

When both of their hands didn't make contact with the ball at the same time. Instead of a sound like, "Thump" its a "Thump thump" sound