Unhappy with the state of college basketball and languishing offenses, the NCAA administered a series of rules changes that should increase scoring, which at 67.5 points per game was the lowest since the 1981-82 season.
The new rules, passed this summer and placed on the league’s website on Wednesday, have been a hot button topic during the preseason. A video was sent out to all Division I coaches last week with all the changes.
They include moving hand-checking rules from a guideline into the official rule book and the block-charge call was tweaked. It now states a defensive player is not allowed to move into the path of an offensive player once that player has begun his upward motion with the ball in attempting a shot or a pass. Before, the defensive player had to be in guarding position when the offensive player jumped off the floor.
The hand-check rules include keeping a hand or forearm on an opponent, placing both hands on an opponent, using an arm-bar to impede the ball-handler and continuing to extend an arm or forearm on the opponent.
“It’s the biggest change to our game,” Louisville coach Rick Pitino told ESPN.com. “No question. Last season was terrible. It was an ugly season. We need to change the game.”
There also will be more replays. Officials will be able to check the video in the final two minutes of regulation and overtime to determine who last touched a ball that went out of bounds and if there was a shot-clock violation.
Fordham coach Tom Pecora told The Post in a phone interview his team’s first scrimmage with officials was full of fouls, created by the new hand-check rules. Of course, how often they are called when the season begins is anyone’s guess.
“If enforced, they will definitely change the game a little bit,” Pecora said.
The question is how often will they be enforced, and when. Pecora remembers curtailing rough play in the post being one new rule in past years, yet said by February and March, “we’re back to hand-to-hand combat.
“There are kids out there that are going to be impossible to guard,” he added. “The big thing with any rule is how consistently will it be called.”