Hold on a second… I know I have a 30-second shot clock in this toolchest somewhere….
You wince. You squint and it doesn’t look any better. Alcohol and other substances doesn’t improve it. There’s no denying college basketball has gotten UGLY.
It’s been noticeable for years but just accepted. Fortunately the cries of the bored and oppressed college basketball journalists are being noticed for once. Calling the product “unwatchable”, they rightly point out that scoring is down and unskilled play is further boggled by too-physical defense. Defense-first teams such as our Wildcats and Virginia are choking out opponents — and nobody enjoys watching 40 minutes of submission holds! The NCAA has gotta give the people what they want!
Changes to the rules, including a shorter shot-clock and allowing less physical defense, isn’t going to fix teams and coaches that just don’t have the talent to score. Our current rule set is what our coaches want, since coaches and athletic directors populate the rules committee! We need to think outside the box-and-one and innovate for a new generation of fans without isolating existing fans. Allow me to breathe some minty-fresh idea air into this debate and help innovate college basketball.
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- Players can get T’d up in a new way: The Theatrical Foul. When a player is caught blatantly flopping and the flop is confirmed by the replay official on the next dead ball timeout, the player’s opponents will be given two dead-ball free throws. The player is removed from the game until he changes out of his normal uniform and into a Shakespeare costume, complete with tights and those poofy shorts. Once in costume, the player may be subbed back into the game. If the player is assessed a second Theatrical, the refs hand him a golden globe and eject him from the game.
Marcus Smart would have looked great in this.
- Referees are instructed that, no matter what, if there is blood, there IS a foul. Right, Tyler?
- The Only The Strong Can Rule Rule: If two officials disagree on a foul call, they must immediately Native American Leg Wrestle. The winner’s call is then enforced.
- The So You Think You Can Call Timeout Rule: To shorten the length of the game and put control of the game’s result further into the hands of players, teams will only have 2 timeouts for the entire game. At the under-four TV timeout of the 2nd half and the start of each overtime, coaches may earn their teams an additional timeout by spending 60 seconds at halfcourt dancing with their mascots. Song list and types of dances to be determined by the referees before the game.
- Dancing coaches are bad for Pat Forde’s psyche. Let’s throw Pat a bone about hearing Seven Nation Army all the time. We install new regulations that a song (or a clip from that song) can only be played once per game, with the exception being a previously-registered fight song that is played only by members of a pep band. Violations of this order will result in the NCAA sending a DJ to the offending team’s next home game to play music during timeouts that is only from preschool television shows. This will be known as the Sandstorm Rule.
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- Swear Jar Scholarship: Coaches caught swearing on TV broadcasts (reported by fans viewing at home by posting the alleged swear on Vine) will be fined after the game. First offense is $1000, each subsequent offense is $1000 more than the previous one. The funds from these fines will go towards providing non-athletic scholarships for any student who is awarded the Swear Jar Scholarship. Maybe the next 1K goal Coach Mike Krzyzewski can obtain is funding 1,000 students from just his potty mouth.
- To also improve the broadcast experience, Dick Vitale is only allowed to comment on a basketball game during halftimes and post-games and is limited to a maximum of 30 seconds. This Broken Egg Rule comes with a high price: Fans watching TV broadcasts at home are not allowed to whine about the network broadcast team being biased against their favorite team. When the refs hear the fans complaining — after all, the refs CAN hear us, which is why we yell at the TV all the time — the next broadcast of the fans’ team will be blacked out in that location by the local broadcast provider. The NCAA encourages you to just turn down the volume on the TV and listen to the radio commentary if you want blatant homerism.
