The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- February 1, 1999

Closing arguments

Basketball coaches divided on rules affecting end-of-game situations

Compare the following scenarios in men's college basketball: A team in 1989 trails by five points with two minutes to play. Another team in 1999 faces the same circumstances. In terms of the playing rules -- all other things being equal -- which team has a better chance of winning?

It may depend upon whom you ask.

That's because playing rules that determine catch-up strategies have changed in that 10-year span. Some coaches believe those changes haven't necessarily achieved their intended outcomes.

At the heart of the matter is maintaining the offensive-defensive balance that then-secretary-rules editor Edward S. Steitz described in his principles for rules writing in 1988. Since the team that is ahead in the closing minutes is most often trying to hold the ball as long as possible before scoring, the trailing team and the defensive team, for the most part, become one and the same -- if a rule helps the defense, it helps the trailing team.

Since many of the recent rules changes favor the defense, Ed Bilik, Steitz's successor once-removed, said he wonders if that balance may now be out of kilter.

"What happens is that the team that's ahead can't play basketball," said Bilik, who was head coach at Springfield College for 20 years before retiring in 1986 and now serves as the school's director of athletics. "They can't dribble and they can't pass or shoot because they get fouled and have to shoot free

throws. They don't get to use the clock in an equitable manner. Many times the team that is behind has an opportunity to make three points per possession while the team that is ahead can only make two if it makes its free throws.

"We do a good job of maintaining the balance early in the game, but it sometimes it may get out of balance at the end."

Northwestern University coach Kevin O'Neill agreed, citing the defensive held-ball and the five-second closely guarded rules as the main culprits.

"A team earns a lead and there are so many ways for a team to get back that it's ridiculous," he said.

History of changes

The NCAA Men's Basketball Rules Committee addressed late-game fouling in 1983-84, when all common fouls (except player-control fouls) became two-shot fouls after an opponent reached the bonus, but the rule was rescinded a month into the season because it gave the offense too much of an advantage. Since 1990-91, two free throws have been awarded for every common foul (except player-control fouls) after the opponent commits 10 team fouls in a half.

Reggie Minton, head coach at the U.S. Air Force Academy and current rules committee chair, said this rule unfairly favors the leading team.

"That was supposedly done to speed up the game but it slows it down," he said. "If I'm behind, I'm going to be coming after you (to foul) as much as I can. If the goal is to penalize the team that's behind, we've accomplished that."

Minton said the current rules prevent a comeback like the famous North Carolina State victory over Houston in the 1983 championship game, when the Wolfpack fouled frequently late in the game and the Cougars obliged by missing the front end of bonus free-throw situations.

Rick Bowen, coach at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, said that the trailing team has a rules advantage, but his determination of whether that is good or bad depends on the rationale behind some of the rules -- in particular stopping the game clock on dead balls in the last minute of the game, which was implemented 1993-94.

"If the reason for the change was to eliminate the potential timing errors, then it was good; if it was done to create more scoring, I'm not sure that's a good reason."

Unfair advantage?

Second-year Hobart College coach Rich Roche said the rules favor the trailing team more than when he was playing, but he likes that. Stopping the clock in the last minute is high on his list of favorites, as is the held-ball rule.

"(Stopping the clock) forces you to play basketball rather than standing out of bounds allowing time to tick off the clock," he said. "The held ball is the best change they've had in years because it rewards good defense."

However, U.S. Naval Academy coach Don DeVoe said that the rules unfairly favor the team that is behind. The main one is stopping the clock in the final minute.

"That's a real advantage in getting the defense set," he said.

But DeVoe said other rules, such as the five-second closely guarded rule and the part of the new held-ball rule that gives the defense the ball when it ties up an airborne shooter, rightly favor the defense.

O'Neill advocated removing the various counts, all of which favor the defense.

"I think we should take all the counts, including the 10-second count (to cross the division line), and throw them out and just have a 30- or 35-second clock," he said. "If you want your best player to hold it at the end of the game, so be it."

Andy Russo, coach at Florida Institute of Technology and a member of the rules committee, contended that any defensive advantage could be remedied by increasing the shot-clock time, which was 45 seconds when the clock was introduced in 1985-86 to prevent extended stalls. That was reduced to 35 seconds in 1993-94. One of the experimental rules this season bumped it back to 45 seconds for the exempted contests.

"Forty-five seconds is enough time so that if you want to run some semblance of a delay game, you can," he said. "(Having 45 seconds) also would take care of some of the things like too much dribbling because you'd be able to run more of a continuity offense and shooting percentages would probably go up."

Georgia State University coach Lefty Driesell said end-of-the-game situations are unfair because of the intentional foul. As written, the rule penalizes such fouls with two free throws, plus the ball out of bounds, but officials are reluctant to call an intentional foul.

"(The way it is called) favors the team that's behind," Driesell said. "To have a chance to win by fouling is wrong. You can tackle a guy and still get a one-and-one. That's not the way the game should be played."

While not advocating any particular change, Bilik, who has a nonvoting role on the committee, suggested using next year's exempted events to experiment with some of the end-of-game rules.

Some suggestions that have been directed to him by active coaches include giving three-shots-to-make-two for any fouls committed in the last 2 1/2 minutes for all backcourt fouls or for any fouls after the 10th in a half. Another was to award one free throw and a throw-in from the division line for all fouls in the last 2 1/2 minutes. Others were giving the fouled team the choice of shooting or inbounding after the 10th foul or awarding a one-and-one for the seventh to ninth foul, then giving the option of a free throw-in instead of free throws on the 10th foul and thereafter.

No matter what, most agree that if a team's best chance to get back into the game is by fouling to get the ball, it is going to foul, no matter how severe the penalty.

"The same strategy is used at all levels," Bilik said. "When I coached, we scouted which players to foul at the end of the game.

"Allowing a team that's behind to come back is part of the game, but it should maintain the proper balance. Whether or not we've achieved that balance is worth exploring."