May 21, 2001

The NCAA News

Eliminating rough play will continue to be the goal of the NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee during the 2001-02 season.

"The emphasis on eliminating rough play was most effective in the early part of last season but that emphasis did not continue throughout the season to the level that we would have liked," said Roy Williams, chair of the men's committee and men's coach at the University of Kansas, at the conclusion of the April 29-May 2 meeting.

But we knew this would be more than a one-year process. This year, we would like to aim for consistency from the beginning of the season to the end, with particular attention to inside play, where we thought last year's emphasis was least effectively called."

The men's committee and the Women's Basketball Rules Committee made changes to simplify technical foul penalties at their recent meetings. All such fouls, both direct and indirect, will be penalized with two free throws awarded to the offended team. The ball then will be returned to play at the point of interruption.

In the women's game only, an indirect technical foul for calling an excessive timeout will result in the additional penalty of loss of possession of the ball by the offending team. Last year, the committees categorized technical fouls as either indirect or direct with a penalty of one or two free throws, respectively.

"Both committees wanted to clean up the technical foul penalties to avoid confusion," said Amy Ruley, chair of the women's committee and women's coach at North Dakota State University. "The women's committee also wanted to eliminate the loophole that allowed for a team to benefit from calling an excessive timeout. I think both these changes will be an improvement for the game."

In another change for the women's game only, an additional player from the non-shooting team will be permitted on the lane during a free throw, giving that team four players on the lane, and the opposing team two players and the shooter. The two players from the non-shooting team who are positioned nearest the basket will line up above the block, thus eliminating the traditional first lane space. The men's rules regarding the free-throw lane remain the same as last season's.

Both committees voted to move the floating electronic-media timeout to the first team-called 30-second timeout in the second half. Last year, the first team-called 30-second timeout in an electronic-media game was extended to a full electronic-media timeout regardless of when it was called. The change will allow the electronic-media timeout to be preserved during televised doubleheaders when coverage of the first game overlaps that of the second. The length of the electronic-media timeout will continue to be determined by the electronic-media agreement.

Game, shot clocks

Last year, the men's and women's committees forwarded a recommendation to the respective division governance structures to require a game clock with a tenth-of-a-second readout, a red indicator light mounted behind the backboard to indicate the expiration of time on the game clock and a shot clock that is recessed and mounted on top of the backboard as described in the rules book. For Division I, the original required date for implementation was 2001-02. For Divisions II and III, the original implementation date was 2003-04.

Divisions I and II recently approved the recommendation, but Division III denied it. NCAA bylaws require that playing rules be common for all divisions, except for those regulations developed to address significant financial impact, as approved by the NCAA Executive Committee, which granted Division III an exception to the rule at its April meeting.

Because of the one-year delay in acquiring approval for the rule and because it will be a budget item for most schools, both the men's and women's committees deferred the Division I implementation date until 2002-03. The Division II implementation date remains as 2003-04. The new equipment is not required in Division III.

Non-compliance in Division I or II in the seasons listed will result in a notice from the appropriate basketball rules committee. Violations in subsequent seasons may include an indirect technical foul on the home team to start the game.

Experimental rules

For the third consecutive year, the women's committee will emphasize hand-checking and post play. The committee has seen improvement in both areas and believes continued emphasis can only continue progress at every level of play. Directives on post play will be expanded this year to include three-second lane violations. The committee believes that more emphasis on keeping players moving in the lane will limit rough play in the post.

A minor change that was made for the women's game addressed only the situations when a player is required by rule to be replaced, such as for disqualification, injury or bleeding, before administering multiple free throws. In those situations, all other substitutes who have legally reported also may enter the game.

The men's committee voted to use the following experimental rules in exempted men's contests that occur before January 1, 2002 (the women's committee did not impose any experimental rules for 2001-02):