In recent years, it felt like college basketball referees spent as much time watching replays at the monitor as fans did watching the game on television.
That will hopefully be resolved with major rule changes introduced by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel on Tuesday. The NCAA is looking to improve game flow, introducing rules that will also help the game move toward quarters rather than halves.
The most notable change allows a coach’s challenge at any point in a game. Challenges can be used to review out-of-bounds calls, basket interference/goaltending or restricted-area arc calls.
In order to challenge, teams must have a timeout available. A successful challenge will allow teams one more challenge for the remainder of the game, while an unsuccessful challenge prevents teams from challenging the rest of the game.
Where the game flow should improve the most is the final two minutes of regulation and overtime. Officials still have the ability to go to the replay monitor in the final two minutes of the game for basket interference/goaltending and restricted-arc plays. However, they cannot go to the monitor in the final two minutes for out-of-bounds plays unless a team challenges the call. It’s an area that has slowed games down in the past.
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee believes a byproduct of the changes and additional conversations that have been held are garnering “positive momentum for moving the men’s game from halves to quarters.”
The committee hopes to have feedback from conferences on the potential move to quarters by the next rules-change year. Men’s college basketball is the only division of basketball playing two halves as professional and international leagues play quarters.
Big changes are coming, but even better, more continuous basketball is coming. More dunks and three-point shots instead of three refs at a monitor is a recipe for success.
