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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
King, I completely agree with you about the timeouts. If players are allowed to bail themselves out with a timeout, they shouldn't get so many of them. They already get 5 TV timeouts per half. Make it like the NFL: 3 per half, period. That way, they actually have to budget their timeouts and use them wisely.
I'm a little more ambivalent about the foul trouble issue. On the one hand, you're right that taking a player out now guarantees less time, whereas keeping them in gives the possibility of less playing time. On the other hand, fatigue often plays a large roll in a player's ability. Taking them out immediately when they're in foul trouble gives them a chance to rest for a few minutes. If they have to rest, might as well use foul trouble as an excuse. In the end, it's probably more about control. Coaches would rather have the option of putting players back in when they want to. They don't want to lose that option. "Don't tell me that my player can't play anymore. I'll take him out just to show you!" It's illogical, I know, but on some level I can understand the impulse.
Incidentally, I remember during the Olympics a few years ago the American announcers talking about how the European coaches don't take players out when they get in foul trouble. They made it sound like it was a very curious habit, like professional athletes who smoke (also common among the European basketball teams.)
I am in total agreement on the preposterous airborne timeout thing we are seeing these days. In order to call timeout, the player should be required to have possession of the ball and have at least one foot on the ground. Too many guys are getting timeout calls while diving out of bounds like wide receivers catching a sideline pass. The refs shouldn't be able to save a player who is in trouble, especially in TV games where there are so many timeouts that the loss of one in these circumstances is rarely a real penalty.
The other rule that needs to change is the full minute that coaches get to make a substitution after a fifth foul. Why should tbe offending team get the equivalent of a free timeout just because one of its players is disqualified? The coach should have ten seconds max to make the change and the other players should remain on the floor.
I know this is killing all you Duke-haters out there, but CBS had no less than 4 Dukies in their employ this weekend - Bilas, Gminski, and Spanarkel doing games, and Chronicle alum Seth Davis back in NYC. Must be a conspiracy...
I don't see the Thurston Howell III reference KK made on Bilas. I'd go with The Professor. Jim Nantz should stick to Amen Corner at Augusta. Gus Johnson is very good and I like Kellogg doing color better than back in studio.
The tournament makes you do crazy things -
I'm still toweling off after rooting for UK to upset UConn yesterday.
I agree 100% about no timeouts falling out of bounds. I liked it when the refs during one of the late games, instead of doing double-techs when it was getting chippy inside came in a told them to 'clean it up'. I like troopers that give me warnings, too :)
Then wouldn't the ball still go to the offense when the defense pokes it back over the line?
I did hear someone on ESPN this morning talking up the women's game by saying they have the dunk now too. 4 players ever is not having the dunk. That is like the NFL hyping the drop kick after Flutie did it this past year. Too rare to bother with.
While I agree that the refs are way too lenient in granting timeouts to out of control diving, flying, spelunking, gliding, and whatever else players on their way out of bounds are doing, I think that your proposed rule changes for timeouts go too far. You often, and rightfully so, question clock management and time out management in other sports,notably football, so why now advocate penalizing a coach and team for using timeouts well, ie, having a few left to save a possession when a player is trapped near the end of a tight ballgame? It's a not a free pass, it does cost a timeout, so the defense is rewarded to an extent. So, while I like your idea of a player having to be in control of the ball with one foot on the floor to call a T/O, let's leave it at that.
Sitting Pops had nothing to do with foul trouble. This was only his second game back after knee surgery and wasn't able to contribute the way that he or Coach Hobbs wanted to. Pops at 70% or less is no match for Sheldon Williams. And the way that Williams was playing, there's a good chance that Pops could have re-injured the knee.
King,
In your article, you propose a rule change: 12: "[Y]ou know how when the defense knocks the ball away and it goes into the backcourt it's not a backcourt violation, as long as the defense touched it last?
That should be a backcourt violation.
Why should the offense be rewarded for having had the ball knocked away? It seems to me the rule should be that once you've crossed the 10-second line, the 10-second line becomes an endline. Ball crosses it again without possession changing and it's a turnover."
If we treated the 10-second line truly as if it were an endline, then a ball batted beyond it would be considered out of bounds and possession would go to the team that did not touch it last. The net result in your example is that the offense would still have the ball. The current rule keeps the game moving rather than stopping play to in-bound the ball.
I do, however, completely agree with you about timeouts. We should reward strong play whenever we can.
while King (and many posters) are right that players shouldn't be able to call timeouts while falling out of bounds or scrambling on the floor - I like the idea that timeouts can only be called when the ball is dead (so sue me for being a bitter Michigan fan in 1993). as far as the mid-majors, Vitale made a point that is not getting enough recognition. he said that if the selection committee is making a value judgment that it is "opening up" the tournament for reasons of promoting athletic "diversity" (among conferences, geography/small schools) - then it should just be honest and say so. he and others like Packer are angered when the Committee pretends that they are picking the 34 "best" teams, which is not realistic. it's like college admissions - a selective private school could concievably say - we're admitting only valedictorians with a 1400 SAT and 3.7 GPA - believe me, the average selective college gets enough applications that it could adhere to such a standard. However, the college makes value judgments that it wants a "diverse" student body with athletes, musicians, artists, student journalists, keg party specialists and so forth. the point with both college admission officers and the NCAA Selection Committee is that they should be honest about the value judgments their making. and honestly, what's more intriguing - Bradley and George Mason or watching the teams that finished 6th and 7th in the ACC or Big 12?
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
