Some say true test for new policies has yet to come
Even though Notre Dame coach Mike Brey has watched his team play under new rules involving the shot clock and physical contact for nearly half a season, he is paying close attention to certain aspects and how they are playing out on the court.
Brey, a former NCAA men’s basketball rules committee chairman, is curious to see how officials will call plays when the offensive player initiates contact; in recent years, it has been all too easy for a player to throw himself into a defender and fire off a bad shot to draw a foul.
Brey’s specific example underscores the main area of concern for coaches, NCAA director of men’s basketball championships Dan Gavitt, Division I men’s basketball oversight committee Chairman Dan Guerrero and NCAA coordinator of officials J.D. Collins alike: physicality. No one wants college basketball to turn into a sport that is won in the weight room; no one wants cutters getting bumped and bruised.
Because he’s still concerned that officials aren’t calling enough fouls to set the tone early — and create freedom of movement in the post — Collins said his assessment of the officiating efforts this season is cautiously optimistic.
“It’s a combination of the game that myself and my regional advisers are watching, talking to coordinators of officials, things that we’re seeing and you get a feel from your gut when you’re an official, you see the things we’re addressing,” Collins said. “Then you also see maybe in the post there’s still too much physicality, and we’re getting some of the fouls, but we need to hone in on exactly which ones are our fouls and which ones aren’t.
“This was a directive — that we need to reset the amount of physicality in our games, and so we’ve gone about in taking the training side of that to try to address, ‘Yes, these are fouls.’ ”
Collins pointed to what he termed a “meet-and-greet” between two post players in the paint. Sometimes, it’s incidental contact. Sometimes, the offensive player displaces the defensive player just enough.
“The question becomes: Do the officials put a foul on that, or do they go, ‘ This is going to play itself out?’ ” Collins said. “What we’re finding is, when they pass on that initial displacement, then the defender pushes back and displaces the offensive guy, so now there’s, ‘Well, we’ve had it both ways, so that’s OK,’ but there’s usually a third foul that follows. We’re instructing: Call the first foul, and we can do a better job in that area.”
Gavitt also is outspoken about the officiating directive side of the game. The stat that concerns him is fouls per possession.
“The number of fouls per possession — even compared to last year — is about flat, and last year was one of the two years in the last 50 that had the fewest number of fouls called,” Gavitt said. “You could attribute that to two different things. Either the players and coaches have adjusted incredibly rapidly, which I think is partially true, because I do think coaches did a great job even before the season started in teaching and getting guys to play with their hands off and all. The other part of it is that we’re just not enforcing these rules to the extent that we expect. I think it’s probably somewhere in between.”
It’s worth watching as conference races heat up and skeptics monitor foul calls to see if they’re having the intended effect.
“That’s where my concern lies, because I do think that this package of rules that went through has really had a very positive effect,” Gavitt said. “Having two timeouts eliminated, getting teams in and out of breaks quicker, the pace of play, the length of games, all that’s very positive, but I just fear that all that positiveness that we’re seeing in the stadium and seeing in games, is masking what is behind the scenes here, is we’re not where we need to be at this point in the season.
“I think everyone’s fear is where does this end up? Because this is going to be judged not by what happened November, December, it’s going to be judged by what happens in January and February.”