On Friday it was announced that the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee approved a few changes to the game of college basketball that have been deemed necessary. Among these rule changes are switching to a 30 second shot clock, and requiring a player to have six fouls before fouling out as opposed to the current five.
There are many other rule changes that are being discussed, but these seem to be the two major ones (you can check out the rest of them here.) These proposed rule changes aren’t set in stone just yet as they need to be approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel which meets on June 8 to discuss these changes.
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As of right now increasing the foul limit won’t be implemented in the 2015-16 season as they will experiment with it in the postseason the same way they experimented with the 30 second shot clock in the 2015 NIT Tournament.
These rule changes are necessary for the game of college basketball because even though it is one of the most exciting sports there is, fans always want more offense. Changing to the 30 second shot clock will increase the amount of possessions per game and make the pace of play faster which will inevitably lead to more offense.
As for increasing the foul limit, fans want to see the best players on the court as much as possible. In the current college basketball game if a player picks up two fouls in the first half you likely won’t see him again until the second half. Adding that one more foul to give will make it easier for coaches to leave their best players on the floor and make it a better watching experience for the fans.
Now lets look at how these rule changes will specifically effect the Duke Blue Devils. On the surface it might seem like the 30 second shot clock would not effect Mike Krzyzewski’s team much because they typically play at such a fast pace. But where this change might really come into play is when the team is leading at the end of a game and they go to their clock draining offense.
Duke usually plays at a fast pace all game until the end when they have a lead, and at that point Coach K typically likes to use all 35 seconds on the shot clock before putting a shot up. If the shot clock does get changed to 30 it wouldn’t allow Duke to burn as much clock late in the game, and while it is only five seconds less, this could impact the way Krzyzewski handles possessions at the end of a game.
The foul out limit being increased to six would have been a huge help for Duke in this years National Championship game as two of the teams best players, Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow, were saddled with foul trouble all game. Okafor and Winslow both picked up two fouls in the first half cutting their minutes down big time, and Okafor specifically was in foul trouble throughout the entire game. Even though Duke did end up winning the game, having that sixth foul would have been a huge benefit for Duke to have, and like I mentioned earlier the fans want to see guys like Okafor on the court, not sitting on the bench.
All in all these changes to game of college basketball are necessary at this point in time. The game is in no way broken, but making these changes will make the game that much more exciting and who doesn’t want a more exciting game? These changes may have a minor effect on Duke and their style of play but they have one of the best coaches ever and he will be able to adapt like he always has. We will see in June if these long overdue rule changes get approved.