What are some needed rule changes in college basketball

[cuss]

Offense numbers seem to be getting lower each year. We all see things that maybe need to be change to make the game better. I think the hand checking on the man dribbling the ball needs to be changed. I don't like when the defensive player constantly has one of his hands on the dribbler. Also, the sliding over to take a charge needs to be changed. Just my opinion. Anyone else?

[Tizu]

I think the charge circle should be expanded to match that of the NBA, first of all. Also, on a charge / offensive foul, the basket should never, repeat NEVER count! Why are you going to count the basket on an OFFENSIVE FOUL? I hate that and it needs to be changed.

Intentional flopping needs to go away, I'm tired of seeing guys go flying across the floor with very minimal contact, this isn't Hollywood, stop the acting (flopping). It's destroyed the game. It's legal, so they get away with it, but I hate it.

1 and done rule. I know it's an NBA thing that the players must be 1 year removed from High School before they can join the league. This is a stupid rule and should be changed. It's destroyed college basketball as a whole. It's rare to find big time players staying at big time programs...they leave as soon as they can. If they are ready to go out of high school - I say let them go! If they choose to come to college, they should fulfill their scholarship offer. If that offer is for 4 full years, then so be it, you must stay for the completion of your scholarship. There are circumstances in which the scholarship does not have to be fulfilled, but don't make it easy.

Pay the players. They provide a ton of income for these schools, far above what their scholarship is. Let the players have some options from which to choose: 1). Accept scholarship and you receive no additional money (other than travel expenses and medical) 2). Choose to become a paid player and then the player must pay their tuition, travel / medical out of that, or have that subtracted off the top prior to receiving payment. 3). Accept scholarship and receive a payment for being present (whether playing or not). This should not be a large amount, but be enough to make it worth it. Say a percentage of ticket sales for that particular game or something.

My 2 cents.

[Marty Da Hungry Wolf]

Cuss:

BINGO!!! on the hand checks, etc. And, while we're on the subject of "hands"; is anybody really sure there was ABSOLUTELY NO FOUL on the Louisville player who "forced" the held ball with Wichita State's Baker at the end of Saturday's first game? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I do think it's very diificult to come running in and "tie-up" a guy who already has BOTH hands on the ball. Fer chrissakes, Louisville had gotten called for their seventh team foul and there were still nearly twelve minutes left in the game, but THAT was a held ball? Whatever ... Maybe Hess had studied Baker's annoying habit of letting himself get tied up, thereby forcing a held-ball situation with less than ten seconds to go in a national semifinal and, by dammit, King Karl was NOT going to let him get away with it this time.

While I was not pulling for Syracuse in the second game, I'm not sure about the charge call on Triche at the end of that game, either. Looked to me like the Michigan player slid over into his path after he left the floor.

Tiz:

I don't have a problem at all with your suggestion - if the contact was such that an offensive foul call was warranted then the basket shouldn't count EXCEPT when the "charging" player did not have the ball; i.e. a 2 on 1 fast break, ball is passed from Teammate 1 to Teammate 2, T2 scores as T1 runs into defender, or a cutter runs into a defender while another offensive player is shooting. In instances like that, I could see still counting the basket.

Flopping should get a 'T'. If we're going to allow charging calls, there should be no need for bad acting.

I've made my opinion clear on the "One and done" thing - it's killing the depth and quality of college basketball. The NBA, who actually controls this whole thing, should give enough of a damn to enact MLB's rule: Eligible for the draft out of HS (or when yor HS class "would have" graduated), but if your butt is in class the first day of college's fall semester (or you go to summer school to get "a jump"), you're ineligible to be drafted for another three years, and it should apply to foreign players too (will leave it to others to figure out how).

Pay the players by putting the money in monitored, low-risk investments that are or act as a trust fund, and only for qualified, pre-determined reasons under strict guidelines do the players get their hands on the money before they leave school. Once they leave, whatever's left in the trust fund is theirs.

By the way: Whatever happened to "over the back" fouls on rebounds?

[Ken D]

I don't like the fact that a defender only has a fifty-fifty chance of getting possession when he ties up an offensive player. The current rule is OK in a loose ball situation, but I believe the defense should benefit from an excellent play by tying up an offensive player who has been in clear control of the ball.

[Marty Da Hungry Wolf]

Agreed - IF he can do it without fouling. I don't remember the last time I saw a "holding" or a "reach in" foul called.

[cuss]

You know Marty, I wish the NCAA could do something about the one and done rule. Really, they need to commit for 3 years. I don't know the answer, but you would think the NCAA could do something. These calls by refs seems to be a complicated problem, but it seems that it's a can be solved.

[Marty Da Hungry Wolf]

I agree, but I don't believe it's up to the NCAA. I'm under the impression it's an "NBA-mandate" that the kids are eligible for the draft after being out of HS one year. I'm pretty sure the NFL and MLB control their draft-eligibility requirements too.

As far as the officiating situation, I'll say again - in my opinion, there needs to be absolutely no more "ACC", "Big East", "Big 10", or any other "conference" officials. There needs to be one entity, the NCAA, that "administers" officials (provided they can get their head out of their ass long enough to actually do something productive). The days of conference differences in shot clock time and three-point line distance are over, so the days of one conference being "more physical" or another conference being "more finesse" should be over as well. You know, there's been a whole lot of teeth gnashing lately about why the ACC hasn't had a Final Four team the last few years and I actually buy into the fact that, more than any other single factor, the BS officiating during the ACC regular season screws ACC teams when the play NCAA tournament games with different officials that do call the game somewhat more consistently (at least more consistently than what we normally see around here), and that call the big stuff, and that probably yell more warnings at the players for the little stuff than they spend time calling fouls. My two cents' worth, anyway ...

[Ken D]

As for the "one and done" rule, neither the NCAA nor the NBA can do anything about that right now, because it is part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and the Player's Association. If it were not a negotiated rule, it would not be legal, as it would violate anti-trust laws. The NBA would be happy to change the rule, and would prefer players stay in school as long as possible because stars would come in to the league with a more established fan base thanks to NCAA's publicity and popularity.

[Ken D]

Someone on Sports Center (Skip Bayless, I think) said it was crazy for the NCAA to only allow five fouls, while the NBA allows six. I think he failed to take into account that at both levels, you get one foul for every eight minutes of play.

Too many good players are taken off the floor, IMO, as a result of ticky tack fouls. I don't have a problem with physical play, per se. Felony assault, for example, should be good for at least a one-and-one. But touch fouls where nobody gained any advantage should come under the traditional playground rule - no harm, no foul.

As far as the block-charge rule, I don't think anybody will ever be able to be right most of the time at real speed. It's hard enough with super slo-mo replay. My solution? Contact that results from a defensive player blocking a driver's path to the basket in the paint is not a foul, either offensive or defensive. If the player is just going to stand there, and not make a play on the ball, he can get run over and just pray the shot at point blank range misses the basket. The further away from the basket that contact occurs, the better the odds for the defense. That would encourage better defense away from the rim, and wouldn't reward flopping.

[Marty Da Hungry Wolf]

Bayless is a moron - if he'd thought for just half a second, he'd see that would make college ball even MORE more physical than the NBA. Same number of fouls with 8 less minutes of game time? The Big East went to that very rule for "experimentation" years ago, and it killed their teams when they got to the NCAA tournament and players could only foul 5 times rather than 6.

As much as he could be annoying on a broadcast, Billy Packer gave the best, most succinct analysis of "what" a foul is: when one player gains an advantage over another, it's a foul. Could be a strong-enough handcheck that impedes the ballhandler's progress, or an - wait for it - OVER THE BACK when a rebounder has position and is blasted off of the ball from behind by an opponent who ends up getting the rebound. If no advantage is gained, it's most likely not bad enough to be a foul.

[mattncsu02]

I agree with all the suggestions in the previous posts. Nothing really to add that hasn't already been said, but I definitely agree some rules and practices in college ball need to be looked at and changed for the improvement of the game.

[Tizu]

Marty, I like your idea that if the players are paid it goes into a monitored investment account and held onto until they graduate. IMO if they choose to not fulfill their scholarship, that money gets divided up evenly among the other players on the team and that person gets nothing, or that money goes to pay back their scholarship. I don't think there should be a reward for not fulfilling the scholarship. It should be treated as a breach of contract.

Ken, while I know the current agreement is between the CBA and PA, I wish the NCAA could make a rule, where if a player is offered a scholarship, they must play for their institution for not less than 3 years before being eligible to leave (barring unforeseen circumstances, of course). I don't know if that would be considered legal or not, but all of these players are at least 18 years old (in most cases) and therefore can sign a legal document and enter a contract with the league. Once the document is signed, they also agree to be paid via Marty's scenario above and once the scholarship is fulfilled (at least 3 years), they can have access to the funds and choose to stay or leave and enter the draft.

I hate flopping, and I agree it should be a Technical foul every time. I sort of agree with Ken that if a player gets in the way and gets bowled over, so be it, he should have gotten out of the way or made a play on the ball. To me, it's not defense if there is no play on the ball and no foul should be called. Now, there is an exception...if the offensive player with the ball lowers his shoulder running back style to run over the defender, that should be a foul and the ball should be given to the opposing team...which is how it is now.

On screens, if a player chooses to stand behind another guy and gets run over because of it...Oh well! You're taking that chance of getting your ass knocked down. Take it like a man, get up and play ball. Now, if the other player deliberately pushes the screening player down - it should be a Flagrant 1...2 shots and the ball go to the other team.

[Ken D]

I don't believe there is any legal way to prevent a student from leaving early to play professionally. I do think there is a way the NCAA could keep high school students who don't intend to stay in school from accepting scholarships. It is both radical and retro at the same time.

Restore the freshman ineligible rule in men's basketball.

Right now, for their own selfish reasons, the NBA will not draft a player right out of high school. So the best of those players, anticipating that they will go pro as soon as possible, use the NCAA to "build their brand". The NBA enjoys the free promotion of its future stars.

If those players had to sit out a year, away from the spotlight, compensated only by a scholarship, how many would elect instead to go straight to the NBA Development league, where they could play against good competition and earn both a salary and endorsements immediately, and be tutored by NBA type coaches?

In exchange for taking freshmen off active rosters, players could still be granted five years to complete four years of eligibility after their freshman year. Then, as is the case now in football, limit the number of freshman a school can bring in each year. Three sounds OK to me, certainly no more than four.

I think this would improve roster stability and also graduation rates for players.

[Marty Da Hungry Wolf]

msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/jason-whitlock-paying-college-athletes-can-work-if-you-follow-these-steps-041013

More about football, but an interesting read in my opinion.

[Tizu]

Thanks for the link, Marty. What Jason is saying in the article makes sense. I think the problem with it, though is not all the players are being compensated. I realize the best are going to earn more and bring in more revenue, that's a given. However, in my opinion, the "bench" players should get a piece of the pie, too. They practice with the best guys and help them get better, so they should get some income for that. Maybe take some of that cash and distribute it evenly amongst the bench players, heck, I'd say give some to the trainers and managers, too. They deserve it and are far under appreciated for everything they do for those players and the team as a whole.

[Ken D]

Whitlock's proposal would at least do one thing. It would establish the principle that college sports are, at their core, professional and not amateur activities. Beyond that, it would establish a second principle - that the compensation of athletes should be market based, and not uniform across all sports and all participants. After that, we're just talking about what the salary cap should be.

But those principles would also have what I assume is an unintended consequence. It strips away the pretense that allows congress to give these activities tax exempt status. Now, personally, I think that's a good thing. But I suspect there a lot of folks who would think otherwise.

I also think he underestimates the degree to which having some paid players and some who only get their free education on the same team will wreak havoc on team chemistry. This issue has more layers than an onion.

[Tizu]

"ONIONS HAVE LAYERS"..."CAKES! Everybody loves cake. Cakes have layers."

Sorry, ADD.

[Ken D]

Step away from the keyboard, Tizu.....everybody stay calm.

[Ken D]

On the subject of eligibility rules, I think the NCAA needs to recognize that football and men's basketball are fundamentally different than all other intercollegiate sports. Not only that, they are fundamentally different than each other. Trying to have one set of rules that fit all sports is never going to work for most schools.

In basketball, clearly a major problem is one-and-done. That's not true in football. In football, there are major issues that arise from gaming the recruiting rules, abusing redshirt and grayshirt practices to skirt the intent of limits on roster sizes and the number of recruits allowed per year. Each of those sports need to have rules that are unique to them.

[Tizu]

I agree with that, Ken.