We’ve reviewed the 2015 NCAA Tournament through the prism of teams and conferences. We’ve reviewed the event through the prism of players who left a mark, for better or worse. We’ve reviewed the tournament through the lens of coaches.
Now, we conclude our series with a look at the basketball rules and policies that most need to be changed in relationship to the events of the past four weeks. Those rules pertain to goaltending and basket interference, especially since we’ve already devoted a separate post to the other big policy which demands action in the coming months: a move to command-center-based replay.
(Side note: We already know that adjustments to the number of timeouts and added modifications to purposeful endgame fouls would help the sport of college basketball, but those are general recommendations. We are referring here to specific events from the 2015 edition of the Big Dance that point the way to other needed changes in the college basketball rulebook.)
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GOALTENDING AND BASKET INTERFERENCE:
TIMEOUT RULES ARE DISCUSSED A LOT MORE FREQUENTLY, BUT RIM-AND-CYLINDER ISSUES ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT IN THE COMING OFFSEASON
As we all found out at the end of the UCLA-SMU game, goaltending – by rule – must be called if there’s a “possibility” (that’s straight from the rule book) that the ball could go through the basket. Does that seem fair or proper? Maybe it has for quite some time. However, when you looked at the last sequence in UCLA-SMU, did you really think – even if you immediately identified the call as a correct one – that the rule made sense?
SMU rotated a big man to UCLA’s Bryce Alford, forcing a bad shot that almost surely would have missed. SMU played excellent situational defense against the one player who had torched the Mustangs up to that point in the game. Yet, because there was a one-percent chance the ball could have hit the middle of the front of the rim and perhaps spun in (crazy bounces don’t occur often, but “having a chance” means “having a chance,” as opposed to “no chance at all”), the referee was required by rule to award UCLA three points.
Let’s sum this up in a brief sentence: SMU played great defense with its season on the line and was punished for it.
Correct officiating, awful rule – Dallas-area sports fans know the drill, having been gut-punched by the Dez Bryant “non-catch” (according to the logic-assaulting NFL rulebook) against Green Bay in the NFC playoffs.
Here’s the larger point to realize about the goaltending rule, which is closely related to the basket interference rule: If the goaltending rule is re-written to state that goaltending should only be called if the ball is “likely” to go in the basket, the job of a referee will be made a LOT easier.
Shooters know when their shots are off. Referees do have to look away from the ball for most of a game, but the trail official (the non-baseline official tasked with making sure that a ball goes in the basket when the lead official or the other sideline official makes a foul call) does have to track the ball and can also determine if a shot is off.
Here’s where the discussion of goaltending becomes a lot more specific… and the need for reform becomes more obvious:
Determining whether a shot has a chance or no chance at all is a difficult job, because ascertaining if anything in life has a zero-percent chance of happening requires absolute certitude. On the other hand, making the determination that a shot is off – i.e., that it is more likely to miss than make – doesn’t require absolute certitude. It requires an application of common sense: As long as the shot is not an attempted bank shot, any evident sign of an errant trajectory in the shot can enable the official to not call goaltending. This is a lower, easier threshold for officials in their decision making processes on goaltending calls.
Shouldn’t we make a sport’s rulebook easier for officials to enforce? That’s one very big reason to adjust goaltending rules, and in a related vein, this is why basket interference rules should be moved to the FIBA standard: You can touch a ball when it’s in the cylinder. Much as a rewriting of the goaltending rule – as outlined above – would simplify an official’s job, the adjustment of basket interference rules would drastically reduce an official’s workload.
Men’s basketball is constantly played above the rim. Naturally, this aspect of the men’s game comes into play on rebound and putback attempts, but it also emerges on alley-oop passes, when the catch occurs near the cylinder on a great many occasions. James Naismith invented and imagined basketball as a game of flow and movement, and the removal of restrictive cylinder rules pertaining to basket interference would promote freedom of movement and activity on many levels. This would entirely exist in the spirit of what Dr. Naismith intended basketball to be. What’s not to like about that? Less restrictive basket interference and goaltending rules would allow all 10 players on a court to move more freely and respond more instinctively to various situations, helping referees all the while.
That’s a compelling set of reasons to adjust goaltending and basket interference rules, but there’s one more reason which has to be advanced, and it indirectly shows why another rule ought to be stricken from the rulebook.
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If you are a college basketball fan who is at least 40 to 45 years old, you probably remember the 1982 national championship game between North Carolina and Georgetown. In the first several minutes, Ewing rather purposefully goaltended several Carolina shots, trying to intimidate the Tar Heels’ frontcourt and establish territorial dominance of the painted area. Those goaltends revealed the logical purpose of the rule: North Carolina cleanly beat Ewing and the rest of Georgetown’s defense on those plays. UNC got off a quality shot attempt. Georgetown and Ewing were late to defend it. Ewing caught those shots well after their highest point.UNC deserved to score on those plays. Good offense beat tardy defense – that’s what goaltending rules have always been intended to ensure.
Here’s some more perspective on what goaltending should – and shouldn’t – allow:
In the East Regional final between Michigan State and Louisville, we also saw Mangok Mathiang reach his arm through the net to block a dunk attempt by Matt Costello. (The play should have been ruled goaltending and a basket for Michigan State, but the call was missed.) It stands to reason that in the attempt to guard the basket, you must stay outside the basket. Going through the basket structure itself to block a shot is patently unfair.
Imagine, in football, a defensive player standing at the back of the end zone on a 55-yard field goal attempt, climbing the trunk of the goal post structure, and then blocking the ball just as it was about to fly over the crossbar. Similarly, imagine this scenario in baseball: An outfielder in the right field bullpen area of Fenway Park – with that very short wall – standing in the bullpen to catch a ball just before it flew over the fence. Neither of those actions are allowed in football or baseball. You have to block a field goal at the line of scrimmage. You have to catch a ball in the field of play – you can fly from the outfield into the bullpen, but you can’t start in the bullpen itself.
It should be clear that as far as goaltending rules are concerned, it should remain illegal to reach through the basket structure; slap the backboard; grab the rim; or do anything else which manipulates the accessibility or stability of the basket structure to alter the result of the shot. Why? You’re not playing the ball, and were to some degree late in getting to the shot. The offense beat you; you should not be rewarded by shaking the rim or backboard, or reaching through the basket structure as Mathiang did in the Elite Eight.
Playing the ball, though, should be seen in the rulebook as something different… because it IS different.
If I bungle a layup attempt such that the ball rolls around on the rim, should the defensive team be punished by having to wait to see if the ball clears the cylinder? The defense – without hitting the rim or backboard – should be afforded the opportunity to sweep the ball off the rim much as a hockey goalie sweeps the puck out of the goal mouth.
Here’s an even better example: If I play great defense and force a prayer with two seconds left on the shot clock, should I be punished by having to wait to see if there’s a one-percent chance that the ball will go through the basket, or should I be able to grab the ball on what is likely an errant shot, thereby being able to start a fast break the other way?
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The true purpose of goaltending (and also defensive basket interference) rules was always to ensure that tardy defensive reactions to clean, effective offensive actions would not be rewarded. However, as the UCLA-SMU game showed us, there are various situations in which goaltending – as currently written in the rulebook – punishes good defense against panicky offense. Goaltending and basket interference just aren’t discussed with the frequency of timeout and foul rules in college basketball, but the 2015 NCAA Tournament showed that goaltending and basket interference – while making referees’ jobs a lot harder than they need to be – have become far too expansive in terms of honoring the balance between tardy defense and effective defense. Goaltending and basket interference should only punish the former, but as SMU could tell you, they punish the latter as well.
If proper rule reforms are instituted in the coming offseason, goaltending and basket interference rules will only punish bad defense… and bring a lot more flow to a sport which was always intended to promote it.
