It will sound like heresy, bringing up the subject during March Madness. Fans wait all year for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament that started this week with a 68-team field and ends with the Final Four determining a champion next month in Indy. But timeout!
College basketball isn’t as exciting as it should be, and the games are too damn long. The action has slowed down through the years as college basketball has evolved from fast-paced to tortoise speed. TV commercials are so frequent the games can seem secondary to peddling products. Coaches squash the flow of play and excitement by calling numerous timeouts—sometimes almost back-to-back.
The college game’s image took a hit in the March 9 issue of Sports Illustrated. Seth Davis authored an article headlined “Foul Play” and it begins like this: “College basketball is facing a crisis. The combination of physical play and a plodding pace has created a game that stinks to watch.”
Davis offers a chalkboard full of statistics to make his case including references to team scoring and points per possession being in decline across the country. Physical defense and lack of rules enforcement by referees slows the game down, just like deliberate offenses favored by coaches who prefer their teams use nearly all of the 35-second shot clock. The mantra is: “take as many seconds as needed to get the shot we want, and we’ll do it while denying our opponent possession of the basketball and also running time off the game clock.”
A slower pace is an advantage for an inferior team but better (more talented) teams also play deliberately. Coaches are by nature control freaks and they will try to maneuver for any advantage the rules allow—or are unclear about. When coaches find their teams trailing late in games, they instruct players to deliberately foul to stop the clock and thereby they turn the last couple minutes into an even slower pace.
Coaches are allowed five timeouts per game and combined with the eight mandatory TV breaks for commercials—along with the deliberate playing style favored by many teams—the college game has slowed down to a pace that annoys those who watched the sport decades ago when there was more scoring and the teams raced up and down the court for minutes at a time with no stops in play. Basketball is a beautiful game that when played at its best, has 10 players flowing back and forth without unceasing interruptions.
When Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan was in town earlier this month to play the Gophers he brought up the length of games. Just like decades ago college games consist of two 20 minute periods but the actual duration of those games, including timeouts and halftime, is much longer than ever before. Ryan asked reporters if they knew what the percentage of actual activity is by the players in a typical game. Someone guessed 35 percent. “It’s about a third,” answered Ryan who had directed research to determine the figure.
For fans that means the majority of two hours is spent watching and listening to commercials, TV replays of game highlights or controversial plays, commentators analyzing the game, bands playing, cheerleaders cheering and teams huddling around coaches.
What to do? Cut back the number of TV breaks for commercials during the game from eight to six (the pregame, halftime and postgame are loaded with advertising too). Explain to network and Madison Avenue executives that a faster-paced game on the court means better TV ratings and more eyeballs on commercials. Have fewer commercials but charge advertisers more money to keep total revenues at today’s levels.
Coaches don’t need and shouldn’t be given five timeouts each. Reduce the timeouts to a total of three for each coach per game, and make two of them 30 second timeouts and the other 60 seconds. Remember coaches also have all those TV timeouts, plus 15 minutes during halftimes to make adjustments.
The college shot clock needs to be changed from 35 seconds to 30, perhaps even 24 like the NBA. It’s a no-brainer because a shorter shot clock means more possessions and increasing possessions boosts scoring.
Other changes that will help are widening the lane from 12 feet to 14 feet, and moving the three-point line back by a couple feet from the existing 20 feet, 9 inches. Both changes will create more space for players to maneuver and score by reducing the crowding on the court (it’s easier to play defense in a smaller area).
Rules makers should also instruct game officials to strictly limit physical play. Critics may scoff about implementation but years ago the NBA went through a period when basketball thugs were controlling the outcome of games with their mauling play. The NBA cracked down on the rules and mandated enforcement by the referees, and the word finesse could again be used to describe plays in the pro league.
Yeah, the college game is popular and no more so than during March Madness when you might even find a little tournament wagering in the local church basement. But there are also a lot of college games where attendance and TV eyeballs aren’t all that impressive. The overall environment of the game is often a big YAWN and that’s the point: College basketball needs a fix and could be so much better.
Worth Noting
Attention Gophers basketball fans: Raise hands if you noticed Minnesota wasn’t invited to the NIT but the state of Iowa has three teams in the NCAA Tournament—Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa. Also in the Big Dance are neighbors North Dakota State and Wisconsin. South Dakota State is in the NIT.
Sports Illustrated writer and CBS college basketball analyst Seth Davis made a surprise prediction by including Northern Iowa, a No. 5 seed from the East Region, in his Final Four picks along with Arizona, Duke and Kentucky. UNI starters include 6-6 forward Marvin Singleton from Minneapolis and Hopkins High School. He has started all 33 games for UNI his senior season, averaging five points per game.
Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg, the former Timberwolves player and executive, ranks with the best in-game college basketball strategists. His attacking, fast-paced offense will find and go after weaker defensive players. Hoiberg, 42, will have a second heart operation this summer. His pro playing career ended abruptly at age 33 after undergoing open-heart surgery to repair an aneurysm in his aortic root.
Steve and Dorothy Erban’s Stillwater-based Creative Charters has availability for fans to travel via motorcoach to South Bend, Indiana and watch the Gophers women’s basketball team play in the NCAA Tournament. Minnesota faces DePaul starting at 4 p.m. on Friday. The Gophers, in the tourney for the first time in six years, are the No. 8 seed in the Oklahoma City Region while DePaul is No. 9. The deadline to sign up with Creative Charters is noon today. More at Creativecharter.com.
Erban said this time of year he is usually sold out for his Kentucky Derby trip but four spots are still open. The trip will be April 27-May 3.
Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal included a feature story on Jim Harbaugh, proclaiming “the Michigan coach’s energy has made him the game’s foremost celebrity.” Writer John Bacon wrote that Harbaugh’s father Jack used to tell his kids “to attack every day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.” Bacon noted that with his players on spring break earlier this month, Harbaugh “popped up” as the first base coach for the A’s during a spring training game. Michigan hired Harbaugh as its coach in January.
Gophers football coach Jerry Kill, talking on last Sunday’s WCCO Radio Sports Huddle program, said true freshman offensive lineman Tyler Moore from Galena Park, Texas shows a spirited attitude during spring practices. He compared the freshman’s demeanor to Cameron Botticelli and Zac Epping, two players no longer with the program but who displayed exceptional fervor when competing. Moore enrolled at Minnesota this winter.
Another new player who has Kill’s attention in practice is 6-5, 273-pound Montana University transfer Noah Scarver. A redshirt freshman tight end for the Gophers who will be eligible to play next season, Scarver attended Washburn High School before starting his college career.
“He’s always been a good football player,” said Giovan Jenkins who coached him at Washburn. “I’ve known for a long time that he could play at this level (Big Ten Conference) but he did get bigger. He’s about 30 pounds heavier from when he graduated high school (2013) and it’s all muscle.”
Jenkins, now a volunteer coach for the Gophers, said Scarver needs to improve his blocking but is a “technician” at running routes and has “pretty good hands.” The blocking “will come as he continues to learn,” Jenkins said.
Derrin Lamker from Osseo High School will be the head football coach for the North and Brian Vossen from Lakeville North will lead the South in the June 27 MFCA Tackle Cancer All-Star Game in St. Cloud. The Minnesota Football Coaches Association’s game showcases many of the state’s best graduating seniors and raises funds for the Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund.
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