Buzzketball: Rules, Rules and more Rules

Hello Hokies fans and welcome back to Buzzketball Central. It looks to be another growing season for this young team, with quite a few challenges ahead. One area that I wanted to make sure everyone was brought up to speed on was the new rules of the game for this season as there are quite a few. Hopefully this quick read will give you folks a chance to know what's ahead combined with my take on how I think this will affect us both short and long term. I have tried to organize the changes into three areas. Game Management, Offensive and Defensive. These areas being which part of the game is most affected by the new rule. Some of these rules go both ways but if I were to give the overall effort of these rules a theme:

It's all about the Buckets.

Game Management

1) Shot clock reduced from 35 to 30 seconds

As we move forward, with the style of basketball Buzz likes to play, this rule change will be advantageous. However, I think this will be a challenge for this coming year as we continue to develop young talent that has not had the chance yet to work at the speed of the game for college. Last year our team struggled to get good open shots with the full 35 second clock. How many times did we have Smith going up as the clock expired with a long three? That wont be there this year, and now the team has less time to put it together. Essentially half the team will be new on the floor for the Hokies this year, between incoming freshmen, incoming JUCO transfers, and eligible transfer students. This influx of personnel combined with what is already a young roster could make getting a good shot extremely difficult. It doesn't seem like a significant change when its only five seconds but it increases the guaranteed possessions by 12 essentially across the game.

2) Teams will have one fewer team timeout (only 3 can carry to second half.) Officials will be asked to resume play quicker after timeouts.

This rule really comes into play as teams get into the last two minute rush to get back into games. Having one less timeout will make fouling required sooner and could actually delay the game slightly more than the timeout due to the increased time around free throws after fouls as teams will likely reach the bonus faster. Other than that effect, I don't really see this having a significant impact on the game in terms of an advantage. Designed to speed up the game, I think they will need to watch for other consequences and see what the impact may be here. It does take away a coaches ability to set up a play without a time constraint in certain situations but that goes both ways.

3)Team time outs called within 30 seconds of a timeout window will now become the media timeout (used in women's basketball last year).

Dikembe says No Commercials in my house....

This should speed up the game, as no longer will you see a timeout called and then one trip down the floor, the ball goes out of bounds to have to go right back into a media timeout. It essentially has the potential to remove as many as four sets of commercials per half since Media Timeouts are at 16, 12, 8, and 4 minutes of each half. Any team timeout taken within 30 seconds of one of these will cancel one set of commercials. I imagine Buzz is a big fan of this change as it means he doesn't have to try to focus his team twice in a short period of time and it keeps momentum moving in key situations that might not otherwise be the case.

4) A coach may not call timeout when the ball is live.

This rule change is my favorite of all the changes. This now puts the onus on the people that play the game to get the timeout called rather than being able to be saved by their coaching staff. This could hurt us in the short run but as Buzz develops our young talent, this could lead to quite a few turnovers and fast break points for the Hokies. This change may actually lengthen the game as it could lead to quite a few change of possessions based on the possession arrow as defenders are able to move in and tie up the ball before timeouts are called by the offensive player. It makes being able to play physical but foul free defense a bit more critical a skill set in terms of Buzzketball moving forward.

5) Reducing time to replace disqualified player to 15 seconds.

This change was put in place to essentially take away the coach being able to put a defensive play in place post foul as their fouled out player slowly moved to the bench. Buzz used that quite a bit last season but that was because we regularly had players fouling out. Hopefully with the expanded roster and somewhat improved depth down low, we should not have as many players fouling out this season. Either way, I consider this change a positive move to improve the flow of the game.

6) During use of video to determine flagrant foul, rule will allow officials to penalize players who fake fouls.

This change is probably one of the most controversial and I will be interested to see it implemented. Can you imagine the uproar if after a flagrant foul was indicated on a UNC player against Duke at Cameron Arena, and the refs review the call and assess a foul to Duke instead? The only problem I really have with this is that it's limited to only flagrant foul review, which usually are cut and dry because of the seriousness of the offense. I would rather the officials be able to review a normal foul, as there will be many more times where a player fakes this kind of foul successfully. Big one that comes to mind is a player taking a charge that kicks himself backwards and actually has no contact from the offensive player but draws the call because of how fast the game moves. I see this change of the rules having little impact because of two things. One, there are only a certain number of flagrant fouls in a game, and two, the refs essentially by changing the call on review would have to admit they got it wrong the first time.

7) Class B technical (hanging on rim, delaying game for example) now 1-shot technical.

No issues with this change as it reduces the seriousness of administrative fouls and focuses the two shot fouls on actual player actions that deserved technical fouls. May lead to some early confusion as refs gets used to implementing it. Expect some mistakes to be made in some early games in terms of how many shots are taken. With the way Buzz focuses on mistake free basketball, this probably has little to no impact on the Hokies moving forward.

Offensive

8) Once the 10-second count begins for the offensive team to cross the division line, the 10-second count shall be reset on all stoppages of the game clock, except when the defense causes the ball to be out of bounds, the offense retains possession after a held ball, or there is a technical foul assessed to the offensive team

This essentially awards the defensive team that causes a ball to be lost out of bounds as the clock should not reset. This is another rule where you should expect mistakes to be made early and often during this season by the referees, mainly to the benefit of the offense. They make no mention of tracking this by an actual clock, so its left to the officials five count, which is extremely unreliable and more likely to be started over than if managed by a clock.

9) Dunking allowed in pregame warmups and at halftime.

This is the removal of an archane rule, back when it was a safety factor to prevent dunking because of the amount of injuries players sustained before dunking became a normalized part of the game. It's about time that this rule was removed. Zero impact either way to Tech games but it allows big men to look slightly better in warm ups than if they had to actually perform a layup.

10) Officials may use monitor to review potential shot clock violation throughout entire game.

This rule change could be used early and often with the Hokies, especially with how often they would shoot as the shot clock expired last season. I am not sure what direction the officiating crews will receive on how often to implement this new rule but it's a steps towards making sure they get the right call, which can be critical for a team that played in 11 one possession games last season.

Defensive

11) Expansion of restricted-area arc from 3 to 4 feet. Continued focus on reducing collisions at the basket is their stated reason for implementing this rule but lets all be honest.

This rule is about nothing more than creating more offense, making it easier to score rather than defend the basket. Look at the picture above and expand that out another foot. It essentially means that the perimeter touches the outside of the lane on both sides now and extends to the second block towards the center of the court. How many ball handlers will now to able to drive along the baseline, get one step into the lane and lay in a shot because the defender has to hold to the outside of the lane in hopes of drawing a charge? It will mean having to play defense behind the driving player, which is an extreme disadvantage to the defense.

This hurts a Buzz team that is all about keeping players from creating chances in the paint. It will likely lead to an increase in fouls on the Hokies this season until Buzz can determine a good way to maintain the defensive perimeter that he prefers while working around the giant hole around the rim. It makes taking a charge almost impossible unless the offensive player is completely out of control because of the space it allows a good ball handler to move left or right when a player plants himself out this arc. It will also increase the importance of having at least three shot blocking players on a team defensively to allow for rotation to this key central area.

On the offensive end, this probably benefits the Hokies with their athletic wing type players that have the ability to control the ball and enter the paint to create their own shot. This gives them more space to move around the big men rather than taking a charge call. It will be interesting to see which side impacts the Hokies more.

12) Eliminating the five-second closely guarded rule while dribbling the ball.

Another blow to the defensive repertoire. This is a bad move in my opinion, as it reduces the passing, reduces turnovers and permits a top player for a team to retain possession of the ball for as long as they can handle being guarded without it becoming a turnover.

This will hurt the Hokies, with how much emphasis Buzz puts on getting back and defending the basket. Any change that reduces turnovers and allows offense more control over the game, especially for teams with that "one player", think Malcolm Delaney as a senior just being allowed to hold the ball at the top of the key for 29 seconds and shooting on the 30th. Makes coming up with a game plan pretty simple.

13) Experimental rule – six personal fouls in 2016 postseason tournaments other than NCAA (i.e., NIT, etc).

Torn on this rule. On one hand, I don't think players foul out enough for this to be worth it. On the other hand, some of these changes to make the game more offensive will likely result in more defensive fouls, especially in the lane. I think that they should leave it at five for all games unless there is a significant increase in the fouling out of players this season due to the new rules in place. This rule would benefit the Hokies this season, but since it's only for the Postseason, non NCAA tournaments, it may not matter.

By next season, I think Buzz will have established enough depth across the board that this rule rarely will matter. I think this rule is another scapegoat of when top teams occasionally lose a top rated player at the end of a game and it hurts brand power and marketability of the game.

There you have it folks, these are the rule changes you need to be prepared for as we welcome in the start of Buzzketball Season 2 on Saturday. Stay tuned for my summary of what to expect from our opponent, Alabama State as we kick off a new season.