During one of Ohio State's first practices of this season, head coach Thad Matta had to blow his whistle, stop play and explain something unusual to his team. The Buckeyes were lined up at the free-throw line and a pair of freshmen stayed put until the ball hit the rim.
“I said, ‘Hey, timeout. This is not high school,’” Matta recalled at Big Ten media day. “When the ball releases, you can go into the lane now.”
The dangers of having such a young team. Every day you're teaching something new.
There aren’t a ton of rule changes from the high school to college game, but there are still a few — like that one — that high school kids need time to adjust to. They also need to be able to adapt to the way the college game is officiated.
Matta’s team hasn’t had much time for that, but the Buckeyes’ head coach may actually see that as somewhat of a benefit this year because of all the changes installed for the upcoming college basketball season. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee made more than 25 rules changes this offseason.
Most of the players on this Ohio State team didn’t know the old rules or the way games had been officiated before. They didn’t know the ins and outs of the game yet because, well, they simply haven’t played it before. They don’t have to unlearn their old ways and re-learn new ones.
“I think for those guys it will be — they’re learning on the fly,” Matta said. “I don’t see that being much of a problem for them.”
The rule changes were designed to "increase the pace of play, reduce the number of stoppages and provide better balance between offense and defense," according to a press release by the rules committee.
The NCAA provided a demonstrational video for the new rules, which is posted above. Below are some of the key rule changes spelled out, given to the media at the Big Ten's media day in October.
- Shot clock reduced from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.
- Restricted area arc expanded from three feet to four feet
- Reduction of 30-second timeouts from four to three; only two carry over to the second half.
- A 30-second timeout called within 30 seconds of a media timeout will become the media timeout.
- Coaches can only call timeouts during a dead ball situation.
- The 10-second backcourt count resets except when a defender causes the ball go out of bounds; offense retains possession on a held ball; or a technical foul is called on the offensive team.
- Removed the five-second closely guarded count on a dribble.
- Guarding in the post: Arm bar allowed in the post area when offense has back to the basket with or without the ball.
- Airborne shooter charge plays — cannot score basket; player-control foul.
- Removed the prohibition against dunking the ball while the ball is dead; teams will be allowed to dunk during pregame and halftime.
- When a defensive player is clearly not going to contact a jump shooter (fly by), the offensive player cannot "seek out" the defender.
- Officials can penalize a player for faking being fouled only when the officials are conducting monitor review for a flagrant foul.
It is to be expected that in the early going there will be an inordinate amount of whistles as players, coaches and referees all must adjust to how the game is being played and called. For example, in Ohio State's 92-82 exhibition win over Walsh last Sunday, the Buckeyes were called for a total of 20 personal fouls, 14 of which came in the first half.
The rule change that has received the most discussion has been the reduction in the shot clock. Multiple coaches in the Big Ten stated at the league's media day their team had been working with a 24-second shot clock in practice to get accustomed to playing faster with hopes that a 30-second shot clock in games won't be much of an adjustment.
The complaints about college basketball reached an all-time high last season as games were taking too long and the play was as sloppy as it had ever been across the board. These changes were put in with the idea of cleaning all of that up.
We'll see exactly how effective they actually are, though, soon with the season beginning Friday and Ohio State starting its run Sunday.
