Tweet
Good read here about NCAA and the problems their competition committee is facing.
Hoops Thoughts: Crisis on the Court by SIs Seth Davis
http://www.si.com/college-basketball...l-scoring-pace
Here are the 5 suggestions to help fix the problem:
"For a long time, the attitude among college basketball’s cognoscenti has been that the game should look distinct from its professional counterparts. That is reasonable, but right now the game is too distinct, not just from the NBA but also from other sports like football and hockey. Here are five rules changes that would push the pendulum back in the right direction:
1. The shot clock should be shortened to 30 seconds.
Some prominent coaches, like Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Villanova’s Jay Wright, who both have extensive international experience, would like to see the clock reduced to 24 seconds, which is the case in the NBA and FIBA. Reducing it to 30 would speed up the game while allowing college basketball to remain distinctive. “Why wouldn’t we go to 30? That’s a better question,” asks Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “We didn’t go to 30 in the first place because the women had it. People wanted to be different. It’s not hard to figure out. A shorter clock means more possessions, and more possessions means more points.”
History shows that to be the case. When the 45-second clock was trimmed to 35 for the 1993-94 season, scoring went from 73.6 points per game to 75.0. Those gains were short-lived, but it supports the idea that a shorter clock helps.
2. The arc under the basket should be extended to four feet.
It wasn’t until the 2010-11 season that the rules committee established a secondary defender could not take a charge under the basket. At first, the committee declined to put down an arc, and when it did in 2011, it was placed at three feet. That is one foot shorter than the NBA’s circle, and it is obviously insufficient. “That thing is like a bee bee on a four-lane highway. It’s a joke,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo says. “That’s the NCAA and our coaches saying we are not going to be the NBA. I look at it as, the NBA plays a hundred games a year. Let’s learn from them.”
Izzo is so opposed to the charge call that he refuses to teach his players to take them. He believes it is dangerous, and he does not want to be hypocritical. There is a place for this play—charges are called regularly in NBA games—but there is broad consensus that too many collisions reward the defense. Plus, it’s the toughest call a referee has to make. Says Adams, “A four-foot restricted arc would help unclog an area that’s an officiating headache.”
3. The lane should be wider.
The college lane is 12 feet wide. The NBA’s is 16 feet. FIBA’s used to be shaped like a trapezoid, but in 2010 it adopted the NBA’s 16-foot rectangle. The college lane should have that same width, but even an increase to 14 feet would be an improvement. A wider lane would push post players away from the basket, which in turn would force them to learn to shoot with touch as opposed to just backing down and powering to the rim. That’s what players do—they adapt. A wider lane would also create more space for drivers, allowing players to showcase their athleticism better.
4. The three-point line should be deeper.
The goal here isn’t to make the shot more difficult; it’s to create more space. That’s why the line was moved in 2008 from its original distance of 19' 9", to the current 20'. With a wider lane, the college line will need to be extended again. If the committee pushed it to 22' 2", which is where FIBA has it, that would preserve some distinction with the NBA’s distance of 23' 9".
5. There should be fewer time outs.
In January, the website Rushthecourt.net published a breakdown of the final 3 minutes, 37 seconds of a game between Indiana and Ohio State. The Buckeyes mounted a comeback and came within a buzzer-beating three-pointer of sending the game into overtime. It should have been riveting, except those last three-and-half minutes took almost 32 minutes in real time. Free throws and three replay reviews slowed down the action, but the primary reason it took so long was that the two coaches called a combined six time outs.
Even before a coach calls a single time out, he is guaranteed nine stoppages of play—four media time outs per half, which last 2 minutes, 15 seconds each, plus a 15-minute halftime. That’s 33 minutes, or almost another entire game, to talk to his team. Yet, on top of those breaks, a coach is also granted four 30-second time outs and one 60-second time out. One of those 30-second time outs is referred to as the “use-it-or-lose-it” time out because teams only get to call three 30-second time outs in the second half. In other words, the rules actually incentivize a coach to call a time he out he wouldn’t otherwise take.
Sure, the refs need to speed up their replay reviews, but reducing the number of time outs is the best way to shorten the game. Former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese complains that “the college game in the last two minutes is absolutely awful.” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney, who heads a competition committee that studies these issues, agrees. “We’ve got to find ways to expedite the last few minutes,” he says. “The games are slowing down to the point where the only people who are going to watch are diehard fans of those two teams.”
Hoops Thoughts: Crisis on the Court by SIs Seth Davis
http://www.si.com/college-basketball...l-scoring-pace
Here are the 5 suggestions to help fix the problem:
"For a long time, the attitude among college basketball’s cognoscenti has been that the game should look distinct from its professional counterparts. That is reasonable, but right now the game is too distinct, not just from the NBA but also from other sports like football and hockey. Here are five rules changes that would push the pendulum back in the right direction:
1. The shot clock should be shortened to 30 seconds.
Some prominent coaches, like Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Villanova’s Jay Wright, who both have extensive international experience, would like to see the clock reduced to 24 seconds, which is the case in the NBA and FIBA. Reducing it to 30 would speed up the game while allowing college basketball to remain distinctive. “Why wouldn’t we go to 30? That’s a better question,” asks Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “We didn’t go to 30 in the first place because the women had it. People wanted to be different. It’s not hard to figure out. A shorter clock means more possessions, and more possessions means more points.”
History shows that to be the case. When the 45-second clock was trimmed to 35 for the 1993-94 season, scoring went from 73.6 points per game to 75.0. Those gains were short-lived, but it supports the idea that a shorter clock helps.
2. The arc under the basket should be extended to four feet.
It wasn’t until the 2010-11 season that the rules committee established a secondary defender could not take a charge under the basket. At first, the committee declined to put down an arc, and when it did in 2011, it was placed at three feet. That is one foot shorter than the NBA’s circle, and it is obviously insufficient. “That thing is like a bee bee on a four-lane highway. It’s a joke,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo says. “That’s the NCAA and our coaches saying we are not going to be the NBA. I look at it as, the NBA plays a hundred games a year. Let’s learn from them.”
Izzo is so opposed to the charge call that he refuses to teach his players to take them. He believes it is dangerous, and he does not want to be hypocritical. There is a place for this play—charges are called regularly in NBA games—but there is broad consensus that too many collisions reward the defense. Plus, it’s the toughest call a referee has to make. Says Adams, “A four-foot restricted arc would help unclog an area that’s an officiating headache.”
3. The lane should be wider.
The college lane is 12 feet wide. The NBA’s is 16 feet. FIBA’s used to be shaped like a trapezoid, but in 2010 it adopted the NBA’s 16-foot rectangle. The college lane should have that same width, but even an increase to 14 feet would be an improvement. A wider lane would push post players away from the basket, which in turn would force them to learn to shoot with touch as opposed to just backing down and powering to the rim. That’s what players do—they adapt. A wider lane would also create more space for drivers, allowing players to showcase their athleticism better.
4. The three-point line should be deeper.
The goal here isn’t to make the shot more difficult; it’s to create more space. That’s why the line was moved in 2008 from its original distance of 19' 9", to the current 20'. With a wider lane, the college line will need to be extended again. If the committee pushed it to 22' 2", which is where FIBA has it, that would preserve some distinction with the NBA’s distance of 23' 9".
5. There should be fewer time outs.
In January, the website Rushthecourt.net published a breakdown of the final 3 minutes, 37 seconds of a game between Indiana and Ohio State. The Buckeyes mounted a comeback and came within a buzzer-beating three-pointer of sending the game into overtime. It should have been riveting, except those last three-and-half minutes took almost 32 minutes in real time. Free throws and three replay reviews slowed down the action, but the primary reason it took so long was that the two coaches called a combined six time outs.
Even before a coach calls a single time out, he is guaranteed nine stoppages of play—four media time outs per half, which last 2 minutes, 15 seconds each, plus a 15-minute halftime. That’s 33 minutes, or almost another entire game, to talk to his team. Yet, on top of those breaks, a coach is also granted four 30-second time outs and one 60-second time out. One of those 30-second time outs is referred to as the “use-it-or-lose-it” time out because teams only get to call three 30-second time outs in the second half. In other words, the rules actually incentivize a coach to call a time he out he wouldn’t otherwise take.
Sure, the refs need to speed up their replay reviews, but reducing the number of time outs is the best way to shorten the game. Former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese complains that “the college game in the last two minutes is absolutely awful.” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney, who heads a competition committee that studies these issues, agrees. “We’ve got to find ways to expedite the last few minutes,” he says. “The games are slowing down to the point where the only people who are going to watch are diehard fans of those two teams.”
Comment