The NCAA announced a couple weeks ago that during this year's NIT, they'll experiment with using a 30-second shot clock, as opposed to the 35 seconds that are used in the regular season. While I question the timing of the announcement, and am opposed to the idea of having to adjust to a different rule only in the postseason, I'm very much on board with reducing the shot clock by five seconds.
I've always hated the fact that the shot clock in men's college basketball is 35 seconds. There's absolutely no reason for it to be that long. It's 30 seconds in the women's game, which is much lower-scoring. If the women can handle 30, so can the men. Especially since a shot's going up well before the 35 seconds runs out 95 percent of the time.
But even more significantly, the shot clock is 24 seconds in the NBA and international basketball. That's 11 seconds less! With a majority of NBA players coming out of the college ranks, wouldn't you want the college game to resemble the NBA game as much as possible? Yet they leave college, go to the NBA and there's 11 seconds missing from the shot clock. It makes no sense. It also makes no sense that it's 35 in the NCAA and 24 internationally. These guys go represent their countries in the offseason and they're using a 24-second shot clock, which doesn't seem to cause much of a problem. Same thing with the foreign-born players who come to the U.S. for college. They go from 24 to 35 back to 24. Stupid.
When these teams go on offseason foreign tours, like Kentucky did over the summer to the Bahamas, they have to play by FIBA rules. That means a 24-second shot clock. And you know what? It doesn't really effect them too much. They're able to adjust just fine. That should tell you all you need to know. If you change the rules, they'll be able to handle it. No experimentation process necessary.
It's ridiculous that the NCAA uses two separate shot clocks for men and women. It's even more ridiculous that the women's rule is the one that makes more sense. They moved the three-point line back for the men, then moved it back for the women a couple years later. They only instituted the 10-second rule, at long last, for the women last year. Yet there are still different shot clocks, and most people would agree that the 30 seconds used in the women's game is better.
FIBA's been trying to get as close to the NBA game as possible for a few years. And they've done a good job. The three-point line has been moved further back to where it's almost the same distance as in the NBA. The lane has been extended to the same size as the NBA's. The shot clock is 24 seconds. All of these rule changes that they use internationally have worked fine. Yet the NCAA hasn't followed suit, sticking with the outdated 35-second shot clock in men's games.
Well, that's about to change. The NIT is just the beginning. A majority of men's coaches favor reducing the shot clock, and the rule change is likely to take effect next season. It'll speed up the game and create more offense, but more importantly, it'll make the game more uniform at different levels. Some of the coaches favor going all the way to 24, but I think they'll make the more modest adjustment to 30, which is why they're going to try it in the NIT first.
This is a change that, in my opinion, is long overdue. But they should wait to implement it until next season. It will probably work out fine in the NIT, but changing a rule for a postseason tournament that you don't use in the regular season is always odd. Like when the NFL changed overtime for the playoffs, but didn't change it in the regular season until a couple years later.
Yes, the NHL plays it out in playoff overtime rather than a shootout and grand slam tennis matches everywhere but the US Open don't have tiebreakers in the final set, but I think you see my point. Those rule differences go way back and have long been accepted as part of the game. They weren't arbitrarily instituted in the middle of the season.
Again, I'm not opposed to the rule change. Quite the opposite, actually. I just don't see any reason to start it so soon. A rule change for next year should be just that. A rule change for next year. They don't need to test out the 30-second shot clock. Mainly because everyone knows it's going to work.
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