College Basketball Too Slow and Defensive? Not Anymore!

Matt McCullers 

Back in February, UNC and Duke faced off this year in yet another legendary matchup in the greatest rivalry in sports. The game was electrifying with both teams going back and forth in momentum. Unfortunately, Duke won 92-90. The day after the game, I went on ESPN.com and read an article that really caught my eye. The article talked about how that UNC-Duke game gave people hope that college basketball was still worth watching. That really made me disappointed because college basketball, in my opinion, is the best televised sport in the nation. Unfortunately, many had given up on it because of its recent lack of exciting, high paced, offensive games. That makes sense because the two top teams that regular season, Kentucky and Virginia, relied heavily on their defense, making for some pretty boring games, even to those who consistently enjoy the sport. Also, teams today tend to take way too many three-pointers and nearly drown out the shot clock before taking a terrible shot, thus wasting their possessions. As a die-hard fan of the sport, I understand everybody's frustration. But those who have given up on college basketball are sure to come back after these new rules are put into action.

The biggest rule change that will win back the hearts of many is the implementation of a 30-second shot clock. The NBA is enjoyable because the players are not only very talented, but they have to attempt to score within 24 seconds, making the pace of the game very fast. Five seconds might not seem to make a difference, but it does. Many teams today play a balanced-to-slow paced offense that manipulates the 35-second shot clock in order to not feel “rushed.” A 30-second shot clock is sure to change many a team’s offensive strategy. Teams will be forced to attempt a shot quicker and they will be prevented from foolishly and boringly drowning out the clock, and then almost being out of time, force a bad shot. Those 5 crucial seconds that players once had will be gone. This new shot clock rule will bring much more offensive and enjoyable games because of the greater urgency to score and the limitation of forcing a bad shot as the clock winds down.

Another rule that will impact the flow of the game is that teams will lose a timeout going into the second half. This will force coaches to use their timeouts wisely. Also, most teams won’t be going into the second half with four timeouts and using them all with two minutes left. This will make the final two minutes of a close game not run forever. Honestly, the thing that the committee really needs to change is the number of TV timeouts. They should change the number of TV timeouts per half from four to three, one at the 15 minute mark, the other at the 10 minute mark, and the other at the 5 minute mark. This would tremendously increase the pace and flow of the game. Of course, one less TV timeout would mean a little less money for the advertisers and we couldn’t have that (as if they don’t have enough money/advertisements anyway).

The other changes include:

- lengthening the restricted area arc from three feet to four

- allowing the officials to monitor a shot clock violation throughout the entire game

- penalizing fake fouls

- instituting class B technical fouls

- eliminating the five second rule

- removing the prohibition of dunking during warmups

I will go over these other rules another time because they don’t influence the pace of the game as much as the first two. These other rules deal with limiting the physicality of the game and other things. For now, I am confident that these new rules on the pace of the game will save college basketball from falling into a stalemate-like, over-defensive black hole of doom. Despite the somewhat disappointing regular season, the conference tournaments were exciting and the first Thursday in the NCAA tournament might have been the best and most exhilarating day in March Madness history. Don’t worry college basketball fans, these new rules will bring the sport to its well-deserved glory. Although we might not yet get 100+ point games like we did in the early 90s (UNLV), we are on our way out of offensive mediocrity.