The NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee on Thursday approved several rule changes including amending legal guard placement in block/charge scenarios involving defenders around the basket that will go into effect for the 2023-24 season. Under the new rule, the defenseman directing a change of position must be at the time the offensive player plants a foot in the air to attempt a field goal. If the defender arrives after The offensive player plants his foot to launch into the hoop, and officials will be trained to call a block if or when contact occurs.
The rule change also states that a secondary defender must be outside the restricted area arc to legally charge. Under the previous rules structure, defenders had to be in a position to charge before The attacking player went airborne.
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee announced the changes Thursday after receiving feedback from members that too many charges were called throughout the season in connection with these types of block/charge games. The NCAA said the goal of making the change would be to reduce the number of counts required as well as give officials more time to manage plays.
“Our goal is to try to reduce the number of charges that are called,” Rick Barnes, Tennessee’s head coach and commission chairman, said earlier this year when the rule change was first proposed. “We want to give more time for the attacking player to adapt to the movement of the defensive player and to reduce the hard collisions that happen.”
The NCAA also approved a number of other rule changes after being voted on this week that will allow first-time players to wear any number between 0 and 99, which has been approved by the Rules of Play Oversight Committee. For decades, the NCAA restricted jersey numbers to double digits starting with 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Other changes to the rules that have been ratified to take effect for 2023-24 are as follows:
- An optional base will allow live/pre-loaded video to be transmitted to the seat area. This has been an experimental base for the past two years.
- Officials will be able to review target interference/interference basket calls during the next informative timeout to ensure the calls are accurate, as long as the official calls it on the ground. If there is a foul on the shooter while the ball is in the air with an overlap in the direction of the goal/basket, the review is immediate to properly adjudicate on possible free throws.
- Non-student substitutes will be allowed to act as peacekeepers when an altercation occurs.
- In less than two minutes, when a coach calls for an out-of-bounds play review, that team will be charged if the original call is not overturned.
- Any time the ball hits the rim and the offense maintains possession in the front field, the shot clock will be reset to 20 seconds.
- If a player is called for a foul, and the officials deem the foul to be a direct result of a flagrant 1 or flagrant 2 foul against the player that was originally assessed as a foul, the officials will be allowed to remove the foul on the player who committed the gross foul.
- A timeout can be granted when a player is in possession of the ball even though the player is in the air. (An example would be a player catching a loose ball and calling a timeout before landing out of bounds.)
- If a player commits three blunt fouls 1 in a game, the player will be eliminated from the game.
- Players will be allowed to wear numbers from 0 to 99.
- Schools will no longer have to make a concession for players to wear religious headgear, provided it is safe to compete.
- Red and amber lights will be allowed on the back panel.
In addition, the NCAA also voted to implement two experimental rule changes for the 2023-24 season – one is a previously approved experimental rule and the other is an NIT-only change. The NIT rule, which would expand the lane to 16 feet, will now go to the NIT Board for approval.
- To continue the tryout rule with the standard media timeout format in the second half (first dead ball under 17 minutes, 14, 11, 8, 4) for any interested conference, as well as in the National Invitation Tournament.
- At the NIT, the fairway widened to 16 feet.