6 Things Slowly Killing College Basketball

1. Carrying the Ball:

Too much “carrying the ball” or what we used to call “palming the ball”. Yeah, they don’t enforce the violation how they used to. You can credit the “And-1” hysteria for either killing the traditional handles game or enhancing the handles game by allowing players to have a bit more ball control which adds to the entertainment value of the game. Me? I hate it. I get why they started letting players “carry” the ball. But I never have liked it. There is no more “dribbling” any longer and it sucks. To us old school players, it’s frustrating to watch. They do enforce “carrying” occasionally but I’d say they enforce it about 5% of the time – that’s my opinion and it’s not data driven. Just a guess.

2. NCAA Doesn’t Allow Hand-Checking:

They took it out entirely across every level of basketball. Give Jordan or Bird the ball in this environment today where you can’t hand check and they both average 50 points a game. They would simply lean into the defensive player and blow past the defender. Back in the day guys were hanging on to one another on the perimeter and it was a more physical game outside the lane. Yeah, I liked it. You could D-up and hand check. It made the game more physical. Which leads me to my next point…..

3. Basketball Got Soft:

Yeah, I said it. The game became soft. When did that occur? When they started handing out participation trophies about 20 years ago in middle school and under. When I was coming up if there wasn’t blood on the floor then it wasn’t really a foul. Okay, I’m joking. But physical play was just part of it. All this “flagrant one” and “flagrant two” reviews are killing the game. Let them fellas bang a bit. I’ll admit though, 5 years ago, it was atrocious and I nearly stopped watching college basketball altogether. The past couple of years it seems like the NCAA has started to let the game get a little more physical. Thank you but there is more work to do…

4. In-Game Reviews

In-game reviews have killed the game. Ref’s make mistakes. I get it. Yes, allow someone to review calls. BUT, don’t kill the flow of the game. Do what the NHL does and have a replay official review it remotely, make a quick decision and resume the game. Put an ear piece in the referee crew chiefs’ ear and have a replay official call it in to him quickly and get the game back on track. This stopping the game and walking to the scorers table to watch a replay is insanity. I understand adding a 4th official (3 on-court officials in college basketball) may not be financially feasible for college basketball since there are so many teams playing on any given night. But, it seems like it would make sense for the bigger games to have a replay official on the sidelines or remotely to keep the game flowing. Plus, the games are taking too long to complete. Especially the last 4 minutes of a game. The unintentional consequence of the replay BS has been that it stops momentum of a team if they have the momentum and a review is called. It also allows for an unnecessary and unofficial timeout which potentially allows one team an unfair advantage. If nothing else, while the refs review, don’t let the teams huddle and strategize. Force them to stay on the court away from their respective benches. This long replay BS is nonsense. I’d prefer a quick resolution with a replay official and resume play.

5. Too Many Timeouts:

As it stands, each team at the collegiate level gets 4 timeouts. But, there are an additional 4 in-game timeouts for TV commercials per half (under the 16:00 minute mark, under 12:00, under 8:00 and the under 4:00). Combined with team timeouts, that’s potentially 16 timeouts (4 for the home team, 4 for the visiting team and 4 TV timeouts per half or 8 per game). That’s nonsense. I understand advertising is what pays the bills. I get it. But, the solution is to cut the number of timeouts granted to each team to 2 per half and keep the TV timeouts at a total of 4. Or, cut the TV timeouts to 3 per half and give each team 3 TO’s. They could easily make TV timeouts under 15:00, 10:00 and under 5:00. But one may say, what about the advertising dollars? Since there are fewer timeouts then raise the rates per commercial spot. Fewer spots means higher dollar value per 30 second commercial. They’ll drive more advertising dollars because of scarcity of ad space; they’ll be able to charge a premium. It’s basic economics. With all these timeouts, how can these kids even get in the flow of the game? It’s nuts to watch. Revisiting the number of timeouts per game is something the NCAA should really take a look at.

6. Still Too Much Flopping:

They’ve started to crack down on it but it needs to be more strictly enforced. That “head throw back” as if the defensive man got whiplashed on a pick is ridiculous. Add that to the list of flopping violations too. And, maybe “taking a charge” should be eliminated altogether. Most of these defensive players are just standing there waiting on the wind to blow and if the offensive player just brushes them they fall to the floor. It’s ridiculous. Heck, if someone is caught doing that give them a FLAGRANT 1 for offending everyone watching.

My name is Kevin Young and I endorse this message.