We Have Won A Battle Against Timeouts But The War Has Just Begun
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imagine this with bloody stumps and shears
The NCAA announced a not-quite-official suite of rules changes in men's basketball that, in the words of John Gasaway, have left twitter speechless in the wake of "a rather disconcerting overabundance of wish fulfillment." Well, most of twitter.
MURDER MORE TIMEOUTS NOT ENOUGH TIMEOUT MURDER MUUUUURDER THEM
— mgoblog (@mgoblog) May 15, 2015
The rules changes fall into three main categories plus some miscellaneous minor fixes. Those are:
A VITAL CHANGE TO THE SHOT CLOCK DOT SARCASM FONT. The shot clock will be 30 seconds as college basketball seeks to combat the scourge of possessions without a turnover.
I've seen a lot of speculation on Michigan boards that such a change will hurt Michigan's offense disproportionately. It is possible. I downloaded Hoop Math's data on late clock shots (ie, shots in the last five seconds of the shot clock) and there is a surprising large spread through D-I. Wisconsin puts up 18% of their shots late; Iowa State is at just 4%.
As you might expect, Michigan is consistently towards the Wisconsin end of the spectrum. Last year 15% of their shots were attempted in a period that will no longer exist. Despite having an off year (after back-to-back #1 finishes in offensive efficiency at Kenpom) they were also very good at executing late, with an eFG of 49.4%. That was 30th nationally.
You could look at those numbers and worry that a hunk of time that Michigan utilizes unusually frequently and well is going away. You could look at those numbers and revel that the NCAA is moving a number of shots into a late-clock situations and Michigan will be better prepared than most to deal with that fact.
If the NIT is any evidence, both of these hypotheses will be hard to test because the shorter shot clock won't have enough impact on efficiency to make a difference.
TIMEOUTS AND PACE OF PLAY. There is one fewer, and any TO within 30 seconds of a media timeout becomes that media timeout. As noted above, your author does not believe this is anywhere near enough timeout murder. He will take what he can get until Congress passes the To Take A Timeout A Basketball Coach Must Cut Off One Of His Digits Act, though.
The NCAA prohibited live ball timeouts… but just from coaches. That will not prevent players from preventing turnovers by spending TOs. They also are "emphasizing" returning to play quickly after a TO and have removed the free timeout teams get after a player fouls out. (Maybe. Those latter changes have gray areas and there is a tendency to backslide whenever a rule is not a bright line.)
Except for the fact that they were not nearly ruthless enough, all of these changes are excellent.
FLOPPING. The NCAA will implement the full NBA-sized restricted circle and can call fouls on players who are deemed to have flopped when they are in the middle of an interminable review. Thumbs up on the former even if it hurts Michigan's defensive strategy; the latter isn't likely to have much impact.
MISCELLANEOUS
- Refs can check for shot clock violations whenever they want. This is clearly spurred by that Nigel Hayes basket in the Wisconsin-Kentucky game and will just add to the reviews that almost never actually result in a call getting reversed. A good rule of thumb is that any law named after a deceased child is a terrible law; the basketball equivalent is that any rule change clearly traceable to a single possession in an NCAA tournament game is almost certainly not going to be worth the extra time spent reviewing things.
- "Class B" technical fouls are now just one shot. Remember when Aaron White didn't get ejected from a game in which he had two techs? Apparently that was legit because one of those was for hanging on the rim, which is a Class B tech. Now people will know that there are different classes of techs—which I did not. So they've got that going for them.
- There is no more five second "closely guarded" rule. I'm torn. In no way was that rule important, but when it got invoked it felt like a reward for superior perimeter defense. On the other hand, I'm all for reducing the burden minor rules impose on referees in the hope that they'll get the more important stuff right.
- You can dunk during warmups. Aubrey Dawkins has been high-fiving himself for days now.
There is also a potentially massive future change on the horizon: adding a foul per player. The NCAA plans to test that at the NIT next year. I am not in favor of that at all; offering additional incentive to foul the pants off your opponents is not going to help create the open, flowing game everyone says they want.
is a step forward, adding a 6th foul would be a step back to the point it would almost nullify any gains in possessions made by a shorter shot clock.
No one ever addresses one of the primary reasons scoring is down and that trasition defense, which has become excellent. Almost no one tries to run anymore mostly because you can't. There isn't an easy, or any fix for this really.
Reducing timeouts by one still leaves 6 TV timeouts and 10 team timeouts. Still way too many.
Not a fan of the women's game going to four 10 minute quarters either.
I wonder how Tony Bennett feels about the new shot clock. I cant see it helping them at all since they always wait until 5 seconds to shoot, and they win games with scores like 55-50.
Some teams like Virginia, Louisville, Cincinnati, etc thrive on good defense and forcing opponents into bad late clock shots. Look at those good pressing teams, even when not forcing a turnover they make opponents burn 8 seconds just getting the ball to half court; that's even more beneficial to pressure defense now as there's even 5 fewer seconds for an offense to set up and try running something.
Overall the effects will probably balance out and not have huge impact on things like that matter like points per possession. There just will be more possessions.
I tend to think that if you have a coach who really understands what he wants his team to do, you can change all the rules you want, he'll figure out a way to make his system work. It's those recruitnik coaches who really don't have a lot of organization X's and O's wise who tend to suffer.
Pffft. If you can't get off a shot against the UVA defense in 35 seconds, how will you get one off in 30 seconds? Can't see it hurting.
about the offensive side...of course it helps on the defensive side for them.
I doubt it. It's not like the system requires 32 seconds of passing before you shoot or else it won't work.
I think lowering the shot clock will be more of a benefit to the teams which are good on defense.
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The elimination of the 5-Second Closely Guarded Rule is related to the reduction of the shot clock to 30 seconds. Perhaps the NCAA felt that the rule would be called even less now that they shaved 5 seconds off of possessions. I see no problem with that.
the shot clock change will prove meaningless and will just encourage teams with long halfcourt sets to get the ball up the floor quicker. I think that is sufficient timeout murder as the biggest problem I have is the back to back team/TV timeout situations. I would add a rule that if say the under 16 timeout does not happen until under 12 that they just do one combined timeout.
Also, while I understand that giving every player one more foul would likely increase physicality and would result in more fouls around the basket, I am really sick of games being decided because the best players aren't on the floor for proposerously long stretches of time and would likely support that change.
Maybe I'm just really old, but I think if NCAA and NBA refs started giving out technical fouls for flopping under the "unsportsmanlike conduct" provision, that would take care of flopping.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsportsmanlike_conduct
Unsportsmanlike conduct (also called unsporting behaviour or ungentlemanly conduct) is a foul or offense in many sports that violates the sport's generally accepted rules of sportsmanship and participant conduct. Examples include verbal abuse or taunting of an opponent, an excessive celebration following a scoring play, or feigning injury. The official rules of many sports include a catch-all provision whereby participants or an entire team may be penalized or otherwise sanctioned for unsportsmanlike conduct.
problem is that a lot of what is characterized as "flopping" by most people is not actually flopping. Take a play where an offensive player is posting and leads with his elbow, it is not a flop to absorb that contact and let gravity take over and take you to the floor as a defender. J Mo was often cited as flopping when he did this, but there is no rule saying that a defender has not use ALL possible effort to not fall down after an offensive player has fouled, that is not flopping. It could be construed as "selling" the foul, but it isn't a flop.
Now, when players like pretend that an elbow made contact with their face and it didn't, yeah, they should get a tech. That is bush league, but I think that people are way to up in arms about "flopping" and offensive fouls. A defender should not be punished because an offensive player loses control of their body.
Dunking in warmups! Yes! Great for fans and great for players.
In high school we would sneak in dunks when the refs were distracted by pre-game stuff, and as a player that somehow could get the blood flowing a lot more than a layup.
i was in HS we had a coach or a student watch for the refs so we could dunk in warmups... it was pretty much the only time i could get some in because my team sucked and always missed me running down the side line uncovered...
One potential benefit of the "6 foul" rule change is that it potentially keeps your best players on the floor longer, making for better basketball and maybe even less of the rugged, bogged-down basketball from backups.
Maybe coaches like Beilein that auto-sub when a player gets a second foul will be more lenient with the extra foul to give. Most NBA coaches only pull with 2 in the first quarter or 3 in the first half.
That would be my guess as to why they want to explore the rule change.
Yeah, that's the idea, but the likelihood is that you'll just see rugged, bogged-down basketball from the starters instead. Backups foul a ton because they're not likely to foul out so they go in with instructions to play really physical. If the starters are less likely to foul out, they'll just play more physical themselves.
KenPom did an analysis of a couple conferences that experimented with six fouls about 25 years ago. In the two years where they had six fouls, fouls per game spiked. When they went back to five, fouls per game went immediately back to normal.
The NCAA will implement the full NBA-sized restricted circle and can call fouls on players who are deemed to have flopped when they are in the middle of an interminable review. Thumbs up on the former even if it hurts Michigan's defensive strategy; the latter isn't likely to have much impact.
That's because you're not an ACC fan. Those of us who are, will be rubbing our hands together with glee at the idea that someone on Duke or Carolina might actually foul out now.
What about lengthy reviews at the end of a game providing a team with no timeouts what is effectively a timeout?
Definitely came under fire during the NCAA tourney this year.
Do they force the players to hang around under their respective baskets, talking strategy amongst themselves, or continue to allow coaches to coach them up during these non-timeouts?
see an issue with it. I do see an issue with the exorbinant amount of time it takes for refs to conduct a review, but not with regard to huddling the teams up. It is a matter of chance when it happens and it is silly to require the players to "stay away" from the coach during the review. Everybody wanted video review, now we got it and this is just one side effect. There is nothing that can be done about it and I think people make too much of an issue out of it.
Definitely something that can be done about it. I agree with the poster above that teams without any timeouts shouldn't get a free timeout at the end of the game just because of a review. It's happened in the NBA Playoffs this year too and gave the Cavs a free timeout to setup their game winning play. I bet the rule will change in the NBA in the next year or two, and teams will have to stay on the floor away from the coaching staff, and then the NCAA will soon follow suit.
Lebron calls the plays anyway, he could have set up that play without the coaches help. They practice those situations, the coach is just simply reminding them of what they practiced.
I am in favor of having unlimited fouls; however on your 5th or later foul, the team being fouled would get two free throws and the ball back.
This keeps the best players on the floor and prevents cheap fouls at the end of a game.
Kill more timeouts!!
Eh, I like my dad's idea of simply not counting fouls AND eliminating free throws but adopting the hockey rule of a penalty box. Of course, the difference is that in hockey you can literally slam your opponent against a wall, whereas in basketball you can't even brush the jersey of a guy while pinning the shot against the backboard.
/ my dad was a troll
The Big East did this back in the early 90s for a few years then scrapped it. There was not a groundswell of support for keeping it at the time. I don't know if it's just coincidence, but the Big East did not win a title during that period. I don't think they had a Final Four team either.
There is no more five second "closely guarded" rule. I'm torn. In no way was that rule important, but when it got invoked it felt like a reward for superior perimeter defense.
Eh, I think that was the case one-third of the time, and the other two-thirds it was the ballhandler forgetting or not noticing that the ref was counting down.
In an extension of the cutting off a digit rule, I suggest something more drastic.
At any point during or immediately after the game, a coach may have the game started over from the beginning by removing the entirety of their external genitalia.
No dunking during warmups? I seriously didn't know that was a thing.
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They can't make up their minds about the 5-second closely guarded rule. It's been dropped, reinstated, and now dropped again. I liked the rule myself. It reduced monopolization of the ball by one player.
kill a few timeouts and leave the rest of the game alone.
As for the 30 second clock, does anyone really believe JB and staff won't adapt? Maybe they run more ball screen offense. Maybe they change their sets to adjust. This WILL NOT impact the good tacticians in the game - they will find ways to take advantage of it.
As for the 30 second clock, does anyone really believe JB and staff won't adapt? Maybe they run more ball screen offense. Maybe they change their sets to adjust. This WILL NOT impact the good tacticians in the game - they will find ways to take advantage of it.
As for the 30 second clock, does anyone really believe JB and staff won't adapt? Maybe they run more ball screen offense. Maybe they change their sets to adjust. This WILL NOT impact the good tacticians in the game - they will find ways to take advantage of it.
I love the thirty sec shot clock. I hope the NCAA goes to six fouls before fouling out. The NCAA refs are so bad that one bad charge/block call can almost single handed end a player's minutes in a half. Giving players a sixth foul before disqualification will lower the impact of refs on the result of the basketball game and that is always a good thing.
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