New NCAA Basketball Rules Changes: Purdue Says Thanks!

Earlier this week the NCAA changes the rules for basketball. It seems to be in effort to make the game more like the NBA, which is a terrible idea if that is the goal. The NBA is hardly even basketball at this point, so the further that college basketball stays from it, the better.

But there were complaints that the pace of games was not fast enough. There was a certain flow with the media timeouts and everything, but people complained about too many timeouts at the end of games (which isn't even close to the plodding, glacial pace at which NBA games end). The timeout-restart play-media timeout sequence that seemed to happen once a game was probably the worst thing dealing with pace, but that has been corrected.

In a way, many of these changes can benefit a defense-first team like Purdue. Let's look at all of them and see how they help:

30-second shot clock - Thank you! Last season Purdue forced 19 shot clock violations. We have an NBA caliber true center (maybe two, if you think Haas will eventually make it) protecting the rim, a 5-star power forward, and the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. Teams now have five fewer seconds to get off a shot. Forget that our own offense can go clogged toilet on some possessions. It just got a lot harder to score on an already strong defensive team. Good luck!

New media timeout procedures - Basically, if a timeout is called within 30 seconds or after a scheduled media timeout it will become the media timeout. This is a fantastic idea, as I hated the inevitable sequence of a coach calling a timeout at 12:04, play ground to a halt, and then the ball goes out of bounds at 11:58 and we have another long media timeout. This can also help maintain momentum if a coach calls a timeout to stop a big run with something like 12:15 left in a half and Mackey Arena is rocking.

Coaches can no longer call a timeout if the ball is live -Meh. As long as players can call a timeout I don't care.

15 seconds to replace a disqualified player instead of 20 - This trims what some coaches used as a free timeout.

Only three timeouts carry over to the second half - No big deal. Coaches will just use them in the first half now instead of losing them. It is still light years better than the NBA's 247 timeouts per quarter and their ridiculously dumb "advances the ball to the half court" on a timeout. They are the best players in the world. Learn to break a press.

The restricted area goes from three feet to four feet - As I call it, the Shaq radius (because how often did Shaq make a shot outside this?). Players can no longer step just outside the arc and collect a charge. Of course, since many college basketball refs are already confused about the block/charge rules this could be a terrible thing too.

Five second calls - You can no longer force a five second call if a player is dribbling. Ah well, if a player wants to dribble away five or more second against our defense that is fine. At least if he picks up his dribble you can force a five second call.

Faking fouls - If officials determine that a player is faking to get a flagrant foul they can now be penalized. I see no way this can go wrong at all.

Shot Clock violations can be reviewed throughout the game - Makes sense to me, especially since most games are televised by somebody.

Grade B Technical Fouls are now 1 shot - For example: hanging on the rim after a dunk.

Dunks are now allowed in warm-ups - I was unaware this was a problem.

The women's game will now play four 10-minute quarters - I am in favor of this, as every other level of basketball plays by quarters. It is only a matter of time before the men do this.

The 2016 NIT, CBI, and CIT will allow players to have 6 fouls instead of 5 - Pardon my French, but this is just fucking stupid.

Many of these changes were made to help scoring which, at 67.6 points per game last year, was near a historic low last season. Well, maybe offenses should get better and players should concentrate on fundamentals. Sorry, but Defense Lives Here and some of these rules, especially the shot clock, can help Purdue. Maybe players should work on hitting some shots and moving without the ball to create offense. I am so sorry that we have to marginalize a major aspect of the game because players don't play strong fundamental basketball anymore.

Also, I have a lawn I would like you to get off of.