OT: No fouling out in NCAA - or in basketball in general

[MUCrew]

Speaking of G-town, has anyone been listening to M&M in the morning where Dickie V proposed the NCAA should go to a fouling system where you don't foul out?  Instead, for every foul after 5, it's 2 shots and the ball.  His point was that Hibbert fouling out in 16 minutes changed the outlook of the game and also made the point that the game was in the hands of the officials. 

I for one, feel that Dickie V has AGAIN fallen off his rocker on this one.  Gottlieb also agrees (and I wouldn't doubt Stephen A Smith agrees as well), but I feel that this would take away one of the more vital strategies in the game.  If a guy has 2 in the first half and is still out there, I would attack the living crap out of him...make him move his feet and get out of the way or suffer the consequences of a 3rd.  As for the idea of moving your feet, keeping a guy in after 5 fouls changes the entire dynamic of recruiting.  You don't foul out...so recruit big guys that wail on everyone. 

This was just some of the stuff they touched on the past couple of mornings.  I don't know if the subject has been posted....if it has, feel free to delete or merge.  This topic just got on my nerves and couldn't believe such a HUGE 'basketball' guy like Dick Vitale would even think this would be a good idea.

[Pardner]

I think Dickie's proposal is stupid as well for strategy sake.  The refs will never stop blowing their whistles as they will have carte blanche.  That said, I do think the limit should be raised to six.  Since the introduction of the shot clock and three, the pace and number of possessions have increased per game.  Teams now play more man or match up zone as a result.  You just cannot drop into a 2-1-2 zone today to protect a player.

[CTWarrior]

I think Dickie's proposal is stupid as well for strategy sake.  The refs will never stop blowing their whistles as they will have carte blanche.  That said, I do think the limit should be raised to six.  Since the introduction of the shot clock and three, the pace and number of possessions have increased per game.  Teams now play more man or match up zone as a result.  You just cannot drop into a 2-1-2 zone today to protect a player.

The Big East did that several years back.  They experimented and raised the number of fouls before fouling out to 6 in Big East games.  The result was a physical game that set basketball back to the stone age (think current Big 10 basketball with lots more breaks for fouls) and very poor performances in the NCAA tournament.  They scuttled the idea after one or two years, I can't remember which.  I think 5 fouls is plenty.

To me the 2 biggest changes in the game that have caused an increase in fouling are the following:

1.  The lost art off the mid-range jump shot. 

Drivers used to pull up and take the short jumper all the time.  Now they always continue on to the basket resulting in the constant annoying block/charge calls that have to be made all the time.  I complained about all the charging calls in the tournament to my former D-I player brother in law.  I told him that pretending to fall down shouldn't be the most effective defensive ploy.    He rightly set me straight.  "What is the defender supposed to do?  If he jumps straight up to block the shot there is bound to be body contact, and even if it is initiated by the offense, if you leave the ground they always call it on the defense.  So the only thing you can do is stand there and let the guy run over you and hope they call a charge."

2.  That carrying/palming the ball that is allowed.

If you look at Oscar Robertson or Jerry West dribbling a basketball in the old days it looks very strange.  They look like terrible ballhandlers.  That's because they weren't allowed to put their hands on the side of the basketball and turn it this way and that.  Since they allow that now, it is much easier to do things like change direction and move fast with the ball.  To combat this, referees allow much more reaching for steals than they used to, to lower the advantage carrying/palming gives to the ball handler.  To combat the reaching, they allow the dribbler to push the defender away (Paulus at Duke is a master of shoving the defender and getting away with it).  Eventually you have Mo Acker getting knocked around like a rag doll by Pitt with no call.

I don't know what you can do about item 1.  The solution to item 2 is to start calling carrying all the time, and basketball would stink because two whole generations of players only know how to dribble that way now.

[Pardner]

Good call out on the BE experiment.  I had forgot about that.  The perpetual whistle was my fear.

On #1, what do you think about the NBA dotted circle rule around the hoop?  I actually think it has worked well and taken a lot of inconsistency out of the charge/blocking calls.  Coaches can teach to it too on both O and D versus the guesswork today as you describe.

A rule interpretation change on #2 would slow down the game as PG's use that carryover dribble to gain speed on acceleration.  I don't think TV would go for that either either.

[CTWarrior]

I originally thought that the NBA semi-circle was a great idea for college hoops, especially after watching Duke beat us in Hawaii by drawing 2,847 charges (my memory is hazy, my figures could be off a tad.)  I'm re-thinking that because it encourages out of control forays to the hoop which would be tough to defend without fouling, particularly if you find yourself in MU's shoes with no 7 footer.   On the plus side, it might drive Coach K out of basketball, since the two defensive techniques he teaches are slapping the floor and flopping.

[TJ]

On #1, what do you think about the NBA dotted circle rule around the hoop?  I actually think it has worked well and taken a lot of inconsistency out of the charge/blocking calls.  Coaches can teach to it too on both O and D versus the guesswork today as you describe.

I think the solution to #1 is not to reduce the charges, but to address the fact that there's nothing else a defender can do.  We all see it all the time - an offensive player runs straight into a defender on purpose, but since he wasn't standing perfectly still it's a block.  A defender just stands there arms up but ever so slightly forward, offensive player creates contact with the arms - defensive foul.  Defenders should have a right to exist on the court.

And start to call things that are obvious fouls even if a player doesn't fall down.  All the flops happen (and there are far far too many flops - basketball players should not spend as much time on the floor as the do now at all) because too often you just don't get a call if you're fouled but still standing - either side of the ball.  It's unnecessary and sometimes dangerous to have everyone on the ground all the time - it seems like it happens on the majority of plays now.