‘Round the Rim – SE
A.W. Prince | Share this:
Watching the NCAA Tournament over the past two weeks has made two things abundantly clear; there are a number of things right about college basketball, and at least two items that must change. We cover those items in this special edition of ‘Round the Rim.
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Great piece. The one and done situation in college basketball is a joke and it’s hardly in the best interest of academic institutions to have basketball mercenaries walking their campuses with no desire, or need to pass more than one semester of course work. And the arc in the NBA is absolutely the right rule for college basketball. Referees have enough judgment calls to make, and the visual arc helps alleviate that judgment and make the game safer and fairer.
I totally agree with the 1 and done fix. If you want to come out….get out. But if you go to college you have to stay until after your junior year. Of course they could always leave for Europe after one, but that won’t happen often.
I agree that the addition of the arc under the basket is a great rule, but I have a few comments.
I don’t believe the Duke player would have been inside the arc. The arc is drawn with a 4ft radius from the center of the basket. The lane is 12 feet wide (6 feet from the center of the basket), thus the arc would only extend to within 2 feet of the line for the border of the key. The Duke player is within 2 feet of the lane boundary so he quite possibly would have been outside the restricted area. It’s quite close and his heel might possibly have just been on the edge of the line for the restricted area if there were one, that’s certainly not clear from my viewing of the video in the article.
As for the secondary defender, I believe that’s an important point. If you are actually guarding the player driving to the basket or that catches the ball on the low post, then the restricted area should not apply. I believe the Duke player would be considered a secondary defender as he wasn’t guarding the Baylor player, he was jumping in front of him to defend an area.
Also as I pointed out in a post on the boards, even if you are inside the restricted area you are allowed to play defense. If you beat the offensive player to that point and jump straight up to try to block the shot then you are not guilty of a foul if the offensive player creates contact. This is directly from an NBA refereeing bigwig in a demonstration I viewed on ESPN. Even with the restricted area, you are allowed the play defense as a secondary defender. What you can’t do is try to draw an offensive foul by being in that area.
SIS – I had a feeling that someone might raise the point about Zoubek’s foot, so I’m glad you did. It was indeed close.
But whether Zoubek was there in time or not, or had his foot outside a perceived restricted line isn’t that important.
The important thing for college basketball is they paint that line, and in the case where its very close, you take a minute to look at the monitor to see if you can tell for sure. It would be no different then the 30 seconds it takes the refs too look at a 3-point shot.
If we had a line with Duke and Baylor, we would have had a clearer answer.
What is the likelyhood the rule on staying in school is changed?
I think within the next 3 years the rule will be changed, although I don’t know for better or worse. If you were to ask me my opinion, I think it is absolutely ridiculous that a young man or woman can fight and die for his country at 18, yet can not be drafted by the NBA (unless he happens to be an advanced student who finished school rapidly).
Just like in MLB, if you want to turn pro out of high school you should definitely have the right to do so…but if choose college, I believe it should be a 3-year commitment. That’s exactly how it is in MLB, and I believe it works very, very well. Even if a freshman college player decides to transfer after one year at a school, the rule would be great as it would still allow a prospect to transfer, sit out a year but still play a full season at his new location before becoming draft eligible.