The NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Rules Committees have voted to push back the recommended start date for their proposals for new court markings to the 2004-05 season.

The recommendations, which were developed during the committees' May 29-April 1 meetings in Indianapolis, are for the men's game to use the international three-point line and trapezoid free-throw/three-second lane and the women's game to use the international three-point line only.

The women's game will use the trapezoid lane as an experimental rule in certified contests this coming season. The women's experiment will not include the international three-point line since it already is a rules recommendation. The original recommended start date for the rules changes was the 2003-04 season.

The amended recommendations will be considered by the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet (June 24-26, Bonita Springs, Florida), Division II Championships Committee (June 24-27, Savannah, Georgia) and Division III Championships Committee (June 23-25, Indianapolis).

"Feedback from the divisional governing committees showed that passing the recommendations without a season's notice for schools to prepare their facilities posed a hardship to some member schools," said men's committee Chair Art Hyland, Big East Conference coordinator of officials for men's basketball. "Although we preferred to have these rules take effect next season, this adjustment allows the rules to be passed while respecting the needs of some to have time to comply. However, the men's rules committee reaffirms its earlier unanimous support of these changes as being the best thing to do for men's basketball."

Women's committee Chair Lynn Hickey, director of athletics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, expressed similar thoughts on the women's committee's decision.

"This gives schools more of a chance to adjust their courts," she said, "but we're convinced moving back the three-point line is the right thing for the women's game, and time will tell if the trapezoid is also the way to go."

Upon acceptance, the recommendations would represent the first major changes in existing court-line dimensions since the 1956-57 season, when the lane was widened from 6 feet to 12 feet for the men's game. The men's game added the three-point line in 1986-87; the women's game added the shot in 1987-88.

Under the recommendations, the three-point line would be moved back about 9 inches to a distance of 20 feet, 6 1/4 inches from the center of the basket to the outside edge of the line. The current distance is 19 feet, 9 inches. The exact metric distance for the international three-point line is 6.25 meters. The trapezoid lane, for the men's game only, creates a lane that is about 16 feet, 2 inches wide at the bottom edge of each block (the NBA lane is 16 feet wide, top to bottom). At its widest point (at the end line) the trapezoid lane's width is 6.0 meters or 19 feet, 8 ³Å½4 inches. The current rectangular lane is 12 feet wide from top to bottom.

A court diagram can be viewed on the USA Basketball Web site at http://www.usabasketball.
com/rules/court_diagram.pdf . The only difference from the international lane under the recommendation would be that the dotted semicircle inside the lane would not be necessary since the college games do not conduct jump balls in that area.

Playing rules approval process

NCAA playing rules are not federated (they must be uniform for all three divisions with the exception of rules that have a significant financial impact). The Association has developed specific guidelines for the approval of rules that involve player safety, financial impact and image of the sport; rules committee decisions are final for changes that do not involve those elements.

Because the basketball rules committees' proposals involve financial impact (institutions would have to budget for new court lines), the divisions may consider the recommended changes separately and, on a division-specific basis, ask the Executive Committee not to apply the change.

The division championships committees will review the proposals during their summer meetings and will have the authority to vote them up or down. If a division requires Management Council or Presidents Council ratification of the championships committee action, those groups also must approve the proposals before they are adopted.

If a proposed rules change is adopted by all three divisions, no further action is required; the change will be published in the next edition of the appropriate playing rules book. If the proposed rules change is unanimously defeated by all three divisions' governing structures, it is considered dead.

If the proposed rules change is not adopted by all three divisions (for example, one group is different from the other two), the appropriate rules committee is obligated to state and forward the respective governing structure's positions on the issue (most rules committees would have to convene via conference call for this purpose) when it is forwarded to the Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee will then be required to act upon that recommendation. If the playing rule has financial ramifications, the Executive Committee has the authority to approve the change on a division-by-division basis. If the change does not have financial ramifications, the rule must be the same for all three divisions.