NCAA Rules Committee Addresses Charging Issue

To demonstrate how long we've been waiting for the NCAA to officially recognize that attempting to draw a charge underneath the basket is as bogus as a Manny Ramirez homer, I searched deep into the repository of DeCourcy's Greatest Hits to unearth this line:

Only Manute Bol can defend the basket while standing beneath it.

I wrote those words closer to the beginning of Bol's NBA career (1985) than the end (a decade later), so obviously the NCAA's most significant basketball rules change for the 2009-10 season has been a long time coming.

Henceforth, a help defender -- the NCAA rulebook will call such player a "secondary defender" -- who sets up underneath the goal and draws contact from an attacking player will be guilty of a blocking foul. It's simple logic, really, because a defender should be actively involved in attempting to defend if he is to be rewarded for being overrun. And only Manute -- no, Yao Ming -- can defend the basket from directly below.

Until now, there had been an understanding that officials should not issue charging fouls when the defender was directly beneath the goal, but it wasn't codified and therefore was administered haphazardly. Sometimes it was a charge, sometimes a block, and sometimes the ref would do that imperious little hand gesture that screamed, "Get up; I'm not falling for your Brando routine."

"We've really created another absolute," said John Adams, the NCAA's coordinator of officials. "If you're a secondary defender and you're under the basket and you take contact, you're guilty of a block."

This change became imperative when the NCAA extended the 3-point line by another foot and forced colleges across the country to paint a second arc on their courts last summer. The whole idea behind that move was to open up the court so players could drive the ball and make the game less stagnant. Forcing defenders to be more judicious about when/where to jump in front of ballhandlers will help that directive succeed.

The rules committee did not ask schools to paint a line on the court to designate the no-charge zone. Because it's defined as extending from the front of the rim to the face of the backboard, it'd be a fairly small area. It seemed unnecessary to put another mark on college courts already as busy as a Jackson Pollock canvas.

Adams said the committee has talked about this for three years and "would not rule out redefining it with an arc if this doesn't work."

It appears the rules committee enjoyed one of its most productive meetings in recent years, based on this result and a few other adjustments we'll see next season:

Eliminating free throw shenanigans. If a player is injured while being fouled and cannot attempt free throws, the coach of the opposing team can designate the replacement shooter from among the other four opposing players in the game.

The committee considered adopting the NBA rule that says a player who can't shoot can't return, but it worried that would create pressure for an injured player to continue before he was ready. There was talk about allowing the opposing coach to choose from all players on the opposing roster, but that left open the possibility of a player deep into a redshirt season being called to make a couple foul shots and blowing a year of eligibility.

It's impressive these contingencies were considered. It shows how thorough the rules committee can be.

Stressing the 3-second rule. It's like those suspense books where the detectives keep saying to each other, "We're missing something obvious." It's possible the answer to cleaning up rough low-post play -- another aspect of the game that has vexed the rules committee for decades -- is simply to enforce the 3-second rule.

If an offensive player must be mindful he can't take up space in the lane for longer than three seconds, it's unlikely he'll engage in a wrestling match with a defender for a spot on the block. He'll have to be more active, more fluid.

The coaches suggested this at the NABC's convention during the Final Four in Detroit.

"By unanimous vote, they want three seconds enforced," Adams said. "They're going to get it. We're going to try to get it. I think we always thought we had bigger fish to fry. Maybe we just looked right past the solution."

Sometimes it takes awhile to get things right. Sometimes it takes 20 years.

But who's counting?

Mike DeCourcy is a writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com.