C.M. Newton, who chairs the NIT Selection Committee, has an impressive history in intercollegiate athletics, having coached at Alabama and Vanderbilt and having been the athletics director at Kentucky and Transylvania. As campuses begin preparing for another exciting season of college basketball, Newton spoke with The NCAA News for a three-part series about the state of the men’s game, from the new three-point line to how sports betting threatens the game. Part 1 addresses the new three-point line (moved back in the men’s game from 19 feet, nine inches, to 20 feet, nine inches) and its effect on the game.

Q  This year, the three-point line in men’s basketball moves from 19 feet, nine inches, to 20 feet, nine inches. You have some history with the three-point line, since you chaired the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee in the early 1980s when it was first being considered before its eventual implementation in 1986-87. What were the pros and cons at that time?

Newton:  We studied it forever, as was typical back then with rules. We felt that the college game had a good balance between offense and defense, and we didn’t want to alter that in any way. The three-point line was needed to eliminate some of the rough play in the post and give teams an opportunity to play differing defensive styles, to balance the little man/big man issue. Every year we would present data at the NABC convention and we never could get more than about 20 percent support from the coaches.

I had become involved with the international game at that time, too, and it became difficult for me to accept that our game had such different rules from the rest of the world. There were some parts of the international game I could not accept, such as defensive players being able to knock the ball off the rim. But there were two parts of the international game that I thought were better than ours. One was the trapezoid lane, which I thought eliminated the wrestling match in the post, and the other was the three-point line. I give Ed Steitz, our secretary-rules editor at the time, a lot of credit – he really believed this would be best for the college game. I was proud of our committee – we finally said we’re just going to do this, and if it proves to be the wrong thing, we can change it.

Q  What was the biggest fear regarding the three-point line that did not materialize?

Newton:  The old natural fear that college coaches have – if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it – was the mentality then. I’ve found over the years that when you start tinkering with the rules, coaches suddenly become purists. The biggest problem we had wasn’t the three-point line itself, but settling on the distance. There also were cost concerns with court markings. But people adjusted to the change pretty quickly.

It neutralized the emphasis in the post and put the shooter back in the game. Today’s TV highlights still show the dunk, but when you start looking at what wins games, you start looking at the shooters. One of the arguments against the three-point line was that it would force teams to play man-to-man defense – that if you were going to play good shooting teams, you could not zone them. Again, one of the beauties of the college game was its multiple defenses, unlike in the pros, and we wanted to protect those multiple styles of play. But in reality, what the three-pointer did was let people play more zone defense. You knew where the shooters were going to be and you could plan your defense accordingly. That was a fear that never materialized.

Q  How will the new three-point distance this year affect the game?

Newton:  What has happened with the three-point line over time is that we’ve eliminated the mid-range jumper. Why shoot it from 15 feet when we can back up to 19 feet and get another point out of it?  You’re either going to shoot the three or go down low for something easy. In effect, we eliminated the longer jump shooting that was still inside the three-point arc. But I think that might come back with the longer distance. Some kids will not be able to maintain a high percentage from farther out.

Q  The three-point line is among the most influential rule changes in the game over the last 30 years. What are one or two other important influences on the game during that time from a rules or style perspective?

Newton:  There were three rules changes during that era that really had an impact on the game. One was the shot clock – it eliminated the “farce” game (for example, Tennessee beat Temple, 11-6, in 1973). Another was the three-point line, and the third was the coaches box. If enforced, the coaches box is a very good rule to take care of the whole bench-decorum issue. I assume that officials aren’t going to put up with bad language to start with, but the fact that only one person can be standing up in the box – and it also designates where that one person can go – has been a very positive rule. We had coaches before that rule was implemented who would go all the way to midcourt and stand almost in front of the other team’s bench. All it takes is one technical foul now, and that coach will stay at home.