Elam Rule - Thumbs up or down?

[NCMUFan]

Personally, I like it.  All business way to end games.

[Loose Cannon]

Entertaining.

[brewcity77]

It's awesome in TBT. I'm not sure I'd like it in all forms of basketball. I like overtime, I like buzzer beaters. It's better than the foul fest, but it's not the perfect change. If a team is chasing, I'd rather see 2 shots and the ball for fouls designed to so the clock.

[UWW2MU]

It would be very difficult to get past the monumental change it would have on the game... but man it's nice as a viewer.

[MUBurrow]

I like it. My only change would be that it kicks in at the first natural stoppage - foul or out of bounds - after the 4:00 mark. I don't like that you can trigger it with a timeout.

[Galway Eagle]

Like it in some instances. Don't like the win on free throws. Don't like that there's no overtime or anything. I think there should be a win by two or something. Yesterday when it's 57-58 and it goes on I don't care for.

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Hard pass. My biggest problem with the Elam Ending is you're changing basketball from a timed game to a points based game 3/4 of the way through the game.

Gotta keep it consistent. Keep it 100% timed, or you may as well say first one to 80 wins.

[Litehouse]

It's awesome in TBT. I'm not sure I'd like it in all forms of basketball. I like overtime, I like buzzer beaters. It's better than the foul fest, but it's not the perfect change. If a team is chasing, I'd rather see 2 shots and the ball for fouls designed to so the clock.

I agree with this.  TBT is a perfect place for it.  It might work in some other tournaments like the NIT or CBI, but I wouldn't want it in regular NCAA or HS games.

[wadesworld]

Not a fan at all.  Refs don't want to blow their whistle and let a team get 25% of the points they need to win the game without having to "earn" it, so teams just start hacking the heck out of each other and it turns into terrible basketball.  Or one team is up so big that both teams are just chucking three pointers for a while and it turns into a brick fest.

Not to mention it's supposed to make the end of games exciting unlike the "foul fests," yet the "excitement" of winning $2M was...making 2 free throws?  Talk about anticlimactic.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Not a fan.

There are things that basketball could do to shorten the end of games.  Eliminate the one-and-one.  Limit the situations where timeouts can be called at the end of games.  Have less timeouts overall.  But artificially changing the game from a timed one to a point one shouldn't be one of them.

[Benny B]

Not a fan at all.  Refs don't want to blow their whistle and let a team get 25% of the points they need to win the game without having to "earn" it, so teams just start hacking the heck out of each other and it turns into terrible basketball.  Or one team is up so big that both teams are just chucking three pointers for a while and it turns into a brick fest.

Not to mention it's supposed to make the end of games exciting unlike the "foul fests," yet the "excitement" of winning $2M was...making 2 free throws?  Talk about anticlimactic.

To your first paragraph, all that can be corrected in the referee education.  Every innovation has bugs... doesn't mean you don't work them out.

To the latter, as someone who obviously has never seen the movie Hoosiers, you no longer have any credibility on this board... the penultimate act concludes on a Sectional Final game won on two FT's.  Granny shots, no less.  I'll defer to the literary experts, but I believe that scene more than qualifies as "exciting."

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

To your first paragraph, all that can be corrected in the referee education.  Every innovation has bugs... doesn't mean you don't work them out.

To the latter, as someone who obviously has never seen the movie Hoosiers, you no longer have any credibility on this board... the penultimate act concludes on a Sectional Final game won on two FT's.  Granny shots, no less.  I'll defer to the literary experts, but I believe that scene more than qualifies as "exciting."

You realize that was fiction right?

[#UnleashSean]

Not a fan at all.  Refs don't want to blow their whistle and let a team get 25% of the points they need to win the game without having to "earn" it, so teams just start hacking the heck out of each other and it turns into terrible basketball.  Or one team is up so big that both teams are just chucking three pointers for a while and it turns into a brick fest.

Not to mention it's supposed to make the end of games exciting unlike the "foul fests," yet the "excitement" of winning $2M was...making 2 free throws?  Talk about anticlimactic.

Cook made a really stupid foul that wouldn't have been awful in regular basketball but was very dumb in Elam. That was the player not the mode.

[jsglow]

My view on the Elam.  It's perfect in tourneys like TBT, especially the way it was originally constructed with something like 9 or 10 games at a particular venue on opening day.  Nothing drags and they got all the games in during the allotted time slots.  But I'd never change the timed ending of basketball in major leagues like the NCAA or NBA.

[Nukem2]

Doubt we would ever see the Elam-type ending in college or pro BB.  Seems silly to set a target score at an arbitrary point.  If it ever came to that, why not just have a standard target score for every game and adjust timeouts, half/quarter breaks, fouls, FTs, etc. to reflect score levels within the game.  Hate Elam, it's just a summer gimmick.

[#UnleashSean]

Ironic...

Just got an email from one of our youth leagues saying they are going to start experimenting with Elam endings at some tournaments this year.

I had a couple games go to triple ot during tournaments and didn't get out until like 3. I enjoy this

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Doubt we would ever see the Elam-type ending in college or pro BB.  Seems silly to set a target score at an arbitrary point.  If it ever came to that, why not just have a standard target score for every game and adjust timeouts, half/quarter breaks, fouls, FTs, etc. to reflect score levels within the game.  Hate Elam, it's just a summer gimmick.

Yup, that's exactly where I stand. I'd rather just see first to 80 wins

[GB Warrior]

It's fun at the level that it's used at. I would like to see a variant, where the Elam rule triggers the clock for remaining time. Said another way, when a team reaches 68, that triggers a clock of, say, 5 minutes. I get the excitement of a bucket ending every game, but the miraculous recovery/response/comeback etc. is what makes basketball great.

[brewcity77]

Yup, that's exactly where I stand. I'd rather just see first to 80 wins

Part of the attraction of Elam is you know about how long the game will last. The regular clock for 32 minutes insures that. First to 80 completely undermines that objective. Two fast paced teams might get there in 90 minutes. Two slow paced teams might take 150 minutes.

Set time plus a set target score is consistent and the rules are the same for every team every time. For this setting, it's great.

[Nukem2]

Part of the attraction of Elam is you know about how long the game will last. The regular clock for 32 minutes insures that. First to 80 completely undermines that objective. Two fast paced teams might get there in 90 minutes. Two slow paced teams might take 150 minutes.

Set time plus a set target score is consistent and the rules are the same for every team every time. For this setting, it's great.

Agreed relative to the TBT setting.

[forgetful]

Yup, that's exactly where I stand. I'd rather just see first to 80 wins

But UW may never finish a game that way.

[Dr. Blackheart]

The Scoop Super Majority has ordained the Elam Ending.  And, so it is written.

[TheyWereCones]

I love it and I can't find one good reason posted here that doesn't have an easy counter-argument.  Every game ending on a made basket is amazing (even if just a free throw).  You can no longer just run the clock out.  You have to go win the game.  Plus you can still win no matter how far down you are if you can play defense and rebound.  Some people say that they don't like that the end of the game is different than the rest of the game.  Hello?????  Do you watch regular basketball now?  Where they try to foul the worst free throw shooter on the other team, drag the game out as much as possible, call a million timeouts, and do everything completely differently from the first 90% of the game?

Give me one actual good reason that it's not better and I will give you a reason you're wrong.  Plus...scoreboard.  Seems most people here are a fan.

[TheyWereCones]

I might like to see it tweaked slightly, but compared to how games are ended now I fully support it.

For example, I'd just assume see them play 4 equal-length quarters.  Then when the 4th quarter ends, the Elam ending begins.  That way teams don't waste a timeout or foul to kick it into gear.  So instead of 3 9-minute quarters where the last quarter is really only 5 minutes before it begins (so 32 minutes of play before Elam Ending), just play 4 8-minute quarters in their entirety, and then it starts.  You could then also reset team fouls to 0 and make it so free throws don't start until 3 team fouls (or 5 again, or whatever seems to make sense) during the Elam Ending.  That way people aren't going to the line so quickly on regular fouls too.

That's the main thing I'd like to see adjusted, but otherwise it's terrific.

[brewcity77]

I could also see tweaking to a made field goal. Any free throws from fouls that result in both a lead and equaling or exceeding the target score returns the ball to the scoring team but to end the game it has to be a shot from the field.

I like the 8-minute quarters too.