Proposed Rule Changes Would Benefit NCAA Basketball

The 2014-15 college basketball season was compelling largely due to its great storylines rather than its quality basketball. Fans paid attention to see if the Kentucky Wildcats could finish undefeated, to see if the Wisconsin Badgers could beat Kentucky and to witness the Duke Blue Devils win another championship.

While all of these storylines are interesting, it still was not enough to win over the average fans, and that’s because the game itself has deteriorated. Defensive players are allowed to clutch and grab opponents and to flop on drives to the basket. Those things make it harder for the offensive player to score, and they slow down the pace of the contest, thus making for a less interesting game.

A prime example of the physical, slow-down play came in an ACC contest between the Louisville Cardinals and the Virginia Cavaliers in early February. In the first half of that contest, the teams combined for 37 points. Virginia led 24-13 at the break, and it was virtually unwatchable.

Having seen the drop in offense and heard the public’s outcry, the NCAA Men’s basketball rules committee came out with recommendations on Friday that will hopefully eliminate the slow pace of play and the low scoring in the college game.

The committee recommended changing the shot clock from 35 second to 30 seconds in length. They also recommended taking away one team timeout, leaving coaches with four timeouts in a game, but no more than three of those could be used in the second half. That will help speed up the last few minutes of the game when it seemed that many teams had an unlimited number of timeouts.

One other big change was moving the restricted arc from three to four feet. The committee also suggested that officials more strictly enforce defensive rules and the resumption of play after a timeout.

Although these are not all of the changes that the college game needs to make, these changes will likely make the game more fun for fans to watch, which is the point of the changes in the first place.

Tim Letcher is a Featured Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimLetcher , on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.