As area men’s college basketball teams open their seasons Friday night, change is afoot. The NCAA men’s basketball rules committee has adopted new rules and points of emphasis as it continues to try to increase “freedom of movement” in the college game, pick up the pace of play and reduce physicality: in other words, make the game a little prettier to watch.
The impetus for change came after scoring in men’s basketball dropped to 67.6 points per game last season, its lowest average in almost 25 years. But in many ways, this is another attempt to do what the rules committed tried in 2013-14.
The question many coaches have is whether this time change will take hold, or if after a month or two of extra-long whistle-heavy games, officials will go back to calling games the way they have in the past.
“Will there be consistency?” Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory said. “Will there be a continuity between one game and the next? And will that continue in January and February? What will happen if officials aren’t calling it? (A lot of these) aren’t changes. You can’t hand check. You can’t bump a cutter. Freedom of movement, all that stuff is the same. They’re talking about enforcing it again. … The officials are good enough to do it. Will people driving basketball and the officials have the conviction to continue to do it?”
Clemson coach Brad Brownell is steeling himself for a wave of foul calls. More whistles will mean more disqualifications, and he thinks more zone play. His team has been practicing more zone.
“You’re going to have to play without fouling,” Brownell said. “How aggressive can you play on the perimeter? How much can you pick up full court? Is it better to play soft pressing? A lot of coaches feel like America’s new defense is going to be the 2-2-1 zone.”
The most obvious change will be the 30-second shot clock. For the first time since 1993-94 when the shot clock was reduced from 45 seconds to 35 seconds, players will have fewer seconds to get a ball on the rim. It seems simple enough, but even that is drawing debate over how much of an effect it’ll have.
“I don’t think the shot clock is going to have the dramatic effect on scoring so many people in the media thought that it would have,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “It’s the physical play that will impacting scoring. We’ve allowed so much contact to become an acceptable part of our game that scoring has dipped. I think the real impact will not be rule changes, it will be the emphasis on enforcing the rules as they’re written.”
Gregory would have agreed about the shot clock before his 10 practices in the Bahamas during Tech’s preseason trip. Now he’s not so sure.
“It’ll make a bigger difference than I thought,” Gregory said. “One phase of your offense is going to be eliminated. You used to be able to go transition game to an early offense, to some type of motion out of your early, to an end-of-shot-clock. If you go transition to an early, you’re not going to be able to do that motion phase, you’re going to have to go right to the end of clock play.”
The rule change Gregory is most curious about is the elimination of the five-second closely guarded rule. One player will be able to maintain his dribble which will change what happens late in the shot clock.
“You may see some teams, if they have a good dribbling 4-man, put him at the point, go four along the baseline and back him in (a la) Earl Monroe,” Gregory said. “Now you’re going to have to double-team him. If he can make a play, you’re going to get some open shots.”
Coaches who are trying to burn clock can have their best free-throw shooter dribble the ball until he is fouled.
“It lends itself now to a guy who might dribble for 28 seconds,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “I’m not sure that that’s where we want the game to go. I’d like that coordination of those two rules a little bit better. But I think they’ve done a marvelous job.”
Defenders now have a four-foot restricted-area arc where they can’t draw charges. One way defenders gain ground though is the “arm bar” is back. If an offensive player has his back to the basket in the post, a defender can put his arm on the player’s back to prevent him from establishing position, so long as the defender isn’t pushing with it.
North Carolina coach Roy Williams, for one, is concerned about the change that prevents coaches from calling timeouts during live action. Only players can.
“I don’t like that part because if things don’t work at the end, I’m responsible,” Williams said. “I’d like to be able to call a timeout.”
Apparently pace of play changes will extend to pregame warm-ups as well — at least for a while. Players will be allowed to dunk again during warm-ups.
“All it’s going to take is one guy to break the backboard or bend the rim (before that changes),” Gregory said.
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