New foul rules?

[Big Fan]

How does everyone feel about the new foul rules? Both teams were in the bonus with about 8 minutes to go in the first half last night. Do you feel these rules will be fairly, uniformly and consistently enforced?
I for one would like to see the referees less involved in the game and certainly don’t want to watch a free throw shooting contest.
I found these articles online to be very interesting. I really feel this has the potential to be a real step backwards for the game.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2013/11/04/college-basketball-officiating-hand-checking-rule-change/3422293/

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/11/10/2861620/how-will-new-foul-rule-affect.html

 

[ThisJustIn]

The points of emphasis are what the coaches (say they) want. Even if they HAVE spent the time in practices working with their players to highlight the changes, it will take time to adjust.

Even if the refs HAVE been spending their (unpaid) off season studying the new POEs, they don't have ANY practices to get used to them, so it will take time to adjust.

Remember the arm bar?
Remember ANY shift in behavior or new learning you did in your life? Consider how you first drove... and how you drive now (though, for some, there may be little difference). What if you "gave up" because someone thought it would set driving backwards?

 

[Icebear]

It will take a month and then there will still be variances between groups of officials as there has always been. I like the increased movement and in time a lot of the nitpickiness will disappear as play achieves a new norm.

 

[Phil]

Frankly, I thought the first few games would be more painful. It hasn't been as bad as I thought (but then, I didn't see the TN Middle TN game, where they apparently hadn't gotten the memo).

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I can honestly say in the 5 games I've watched I did feel there was better and more open movement. I also felt the effort to enforce the hand check rule was over-zealously enforced a few times. I think, as others have said, it will take some time.

Players will need to adjust or they will not be in the game. It is simple.

I do worry that defense will gradually give way to offensive show-cases. As one announcer was describing it, it was starting to sound like a mini-NBA. I like defense. Less physical than has been permitted, but defense.

Carolyn Peck also pointed out that part of the drop in scoring has to be attributed to the fact that a lot of players are not very good shooters anymore; they are better at getting to the basket than shooting from mid-range.

 

[PhanTom]

I just wish airline authorities would declare Connecticut a NO FLY zone for Dee Kantner. In recent years I have gone from a fan of hers to feeling her ego has gotten the best of her, and she insists on putting her handprint on these high profile games from the tipoff. In theory that may sound like a good thing, set the ground rules, but it seems the result is too often UCONN has a key player pick up two quick fouls and sent to the bench. The fact that she does so many UCONN games demonstrates a weakness in the NCAA officiating pool.

 

[John Glass]

34 fouls in the FIRST HALF of the LSU vs UMass men's game

I agree with Carolyn Peck, kids cannot shoot these days.

Beware Maryland does have a lot of shooters, although the key to the game will be ballhandling, and defense.

 

[pap49cba]

If the games start running over 2 hrs. ESPN will have to step in...

 

[VAMike23]

It would have been very interesting to see how the UCONN/ Notre Dame games of the past few years would have looked under the new officiating and rules emphases. Ditto for West Virginia.

 

[John Glass]

If the games start running over 2 hrs. ESPN will have to step in...

The ESPN Tip-Off Marathon was not intended to mean every game is a marathon

UMass beats LSU 92-90 in 2 hours and 18 minutes

 

[AndyCT]

How does everyone feel about the new foul rules? Both teams were in the bonus with about 8 minutes to go in the first half last night. Do you feel these rules will be fairly, uniformly and consistently enforced?
I for one would like to see the referees less involved in the game and certainly don’t want to watch a free throw shooting contest.

If you want the referees to be “less involved in the game”, then tell the players to commit less fouls. It’s that simple. If the players stop holding and bumping and hacking we won’t even need officials; but until then, to prevent the game’s continuing devolution towards something like Rollerball – or worse, last year’s Louisville – Baylor game, the referees are going to be a very necessary evil.

Certainly there have always been (and there will always be) issues with missed and phantom calls, arbitrary interpretations, and the mess that comes when the referees let a game get out of hand and then try to reign it back in (think last year's Kentucky game); but on the whole they do a good job.

One of the “good” things is that the new rules, or the applications of them anyway, are more straightforward and less subject to interpretation. It’s not so much that a referee has to determine how a player’s progress was impeded anymore – it’s quite simple – one quick “hot stove” touch (thanks, Meghan Culmo) to measure up and after that, hands off. No riding, no two-hand touches, no arm bars, nothing. (My understanding is that there is a little more leeway in the post since those players will normally be in contact). So the biggest thing you can do to prevent a foul call is simply not touch the other player…that’s all you have to (not) do.

And I think, with few exceptions, everyone is giving both the players and referees time to adjust to the new rules because we (almost) all seem to agree that some pain now will make for a much better game down the road, if they stick with it. It seems the vast majority of coaches (not counting the linked Boise State Women’s, apparently), commentators, analysts, and writers think that these rule changes will be good for basketball once everybody gets used to them. Everybody expected, as Ice said, that he first month or so would be rough – they’ve been warning us since the summer.

Besides, on the whole last night’s game wasn’t really that bad – UConn had 19 fouls against a season average last year of 12.8 per game, so it’s up a bit under 50% - but this was also early in the season and against the #3 team in the country where we might expect them to draw more fouls. Against UHart, UConn had only 13 fouls (right on the average), so I don’t see this as being a long term problem for UConn; quite the opposite, they have the talent to adapt to playing great position and movement defense, whatever the rules are, as long as they the rules are consistent. It’s the lesser teams that are forced to push the limits more and they will be the ones that will have to learn to play the game better.


P.S. I am no fan of the referees, Dee Kantner included, but here’s something to think about – except in the NCAA tournament, the referees are individual contractors provided (read: hired/paid) by the tournament host or home school – so if Dee’s working a lot of UConn games I don’t think Geno is too upset at her overall body of work.

For the NCAA tournament they are selected based on their evaluations throughout the course of the year, and as was made a big deal out of last year, after the Louisville – Baylor debacle Dee’s crew was intentionally assigned to what was the de facto national championship game against Notre Dame.

Just something to ponder…

 

[John Glass]

55 fouls called so far in the South Carolina vs Baylor men's game

35 last year..... another game way over 2 hours, ESPN must be livid