NCAA's new hand-check rule isn't having quite the effect that its creators had in mind
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- So the early returns are in, and
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Ahem.
Now, where were we? Ah, yes. So the early returns are in on the new
hand-checking rule in college basketball and
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And
we can't say they didn't
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warn us.
Oh, come on.
Seriously?
"A coach said the other night, 'I'm down
to my last five players,'" Curtis Shaw, coordinator of men's basketball
officials with the Big 12 Conference, told FOXSportsKansasCity.com. "And
I said, 'You better tell them to stop doing what the first five are
doing.'"
Welcome to NCAA Basketball 2013-14, or, as
it's going to be known, "The War Of Attrition." Because, thanks to rules
proposed in May and adopted in June, college hoops in November is going
to look ... different.
Hand-checks?
Foul.
Two hands? Foul.
Arm bar?
Foul.
Forearm on the back?
Foul.
Holding? Foul.
Hip-checks?
Foul.
Oh, the idea was sound enough: Crack down on
physicality and brutality in the sport, promote movement and
athleticism, and we'll have a prettier, more aesthetically pleasing
product. Division I schools averaged 67.5 points per game a year ago --
the lowest clip since the 1951-52 season.
So Bluto
Ball is out; Butterfly Ball is in. Even the block-charge rule has been
tweaked so that defenders need to be in position earlier or risk the
wrath of the zebras.
"The games will be ugly early,"
Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger predicted last month during Big 12 Media Day.
"Everyone will be unhappy about it. But hopefully they can sustain it
and call it the way they're projecting. It will be a huge
adjustment."
Yes, yes, yes ... and hell,
yes.
What began as an act of noble intent on the part
of the rules committee -- of which nine of the 12 members are coaches
-- has turned college basketball contests into fan-unfriendly
whistle-fests, stop-start affairs in which free throws are up, and
continuous game flow is alarmingly down.
The early
returns, at least in the preseason, have proven historic, and not in a
good way. What was once a two-hour game is now two-and-a-half, or closer
to three. In Kansas' exhibition opener against Pittsburg State last
week, for example, a combined 60 fouls were called: The Jayhawks went to
the stripe 31 times, the Gorillas 30.
"When you're
playing that many guys and there's that many stoppages," coach Bill Self
noted after the contest, "it is hard to get
rhythm."
Or, for that matter, stay
awake.
And it got loopier Tuesday night: In KU's
second exhibition, against Fort Wayne State, the Jayhawks took 39 free
throws, the most attempts the program had seen in a preseason game since
2010, and one more trip than they would've made in any regular-season
contest last season.
Wichita State coach Gregg
Marshall, whose Shockers have prided themselves on toughness and
physicality, a squad that rode the "Play Angry" mantra all the way to
the Final Four, told the Wichita Eagle that during a recent scrimmage
against Baylor, the Bears shot 23 free throws over a 20-minute
span.
"One coach told me, 'You're making me change
the way I coached for 20 years,'" said Shaw, who's called seven Final
Fours and more than 1,500 tilts over his career. "Defense was supposed
to be moving your feet, keeping your body in front, box out, et
cetera.
"The defense was never intended to be the one
to initiate contact in basketball. That's tackling in football, it's
not defense in basketball."
But sometimes, change is
hard. And painful. And slow. And painful. Officials in the Big 12 and
elsewhere have been encouraged to enforce the new standard at every
possible turn, so that the style of play, eventually, will start to
correct itself.
In theory, proponents say, the
winners are the athletes, the quicker one-on-one players, first-step
guys who can create their own space, their own shot. The losers: Teams
that can't guard those first-step guys,
one-on-one.
"(Critics say), 'Well, the little guy
isn't going to win; the guy with the talent is going to win,'" Shaw
said. "Well, talent is going to win."
But talent is
also going to
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ahem, bump, at times. Even inadvertently.
"I think
the fallacy is we're not going to have contact," West Virginia coach Bob
Huggins said. "You can't put ten people that big, that strong, that
fast in such a confined area. They're going to run into each
other. I mean, it just happens, and it's always been a contact
sport. I think what they're trying to do is free up the guy with the
ball more. I don't know."
Nobody does. Will
scoring go up, as intended? Will games simmer down to their normal
length? Will a big-name player -- or big-name team -- get hurt by the
new rules in March? Or, because of a call, miss playing in March
altogether?
"No, because the teams playing in March
will have changed," Shaw said, "or else they won't be playing in
March."
In the meantime, enjoy the free throws.
Because a game that might end up flying as gracefully as a butterfly is
going to spend an awful lot of time crawling like a caterpillar
first.
You can follow Sean Keeler
on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at
seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
