Too Much Replay

I was all set to do a post about the transfer portal and how it's absolutely killing college basketball.  Specifically how the timing of it is so stupid and how there's an easy solution to that problem.  It's the same solution I offered when I wrote about the football transfer portal back in December (which is why I decided not to do one about the basketball portal).  You don't open it until after the NCAA Tournament!  It makes absolutely NO sense how more than 1,000 players are in the transfer portal while the best teams are still playing the most important games of the season in the sport's marquee event!

So, instead of complaining about the transfer portal, I'm going to complain about another thing that's ruining college basketball.  Well, not necessarily college basketball as a whole, but definitely the NCAA Tournament.  The overabundance of officials going to the monitor, which makes NCAA Tournament games unnecessarily long.  It's insufferable!

Stan Van Gundy has been speaking for all of America with his disdain for the frequency with which officials go to replay, especially at the end of games.  During Florida-Texas Tech, he said something along the lines of "why would we want to interrupt all of these stoppages with an exciting basketball game?"  That pretty much summed it up.  It's too much.  And it makes the last two minutes of games take forever!

The last two minutes is an important distinction because that's when officials can stop play to check the monitor at any time.  Which is something they take full advantage of.  They go to the monitor on seemingly every play in the last two minutes, whether it's a close game or not.  And most of the stoppages are to reset the clock, and it takes five minutes for them to add 0.3 seconds!  Because it's super important to have the clock be at 4.8 instead of 4.5 in an eight-point game where the team that's winning has the ball!

Don't get me wrong.  There are situations when going to the monitor is absolutely necessary, especially in a close game.  You aren't sure who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds?  Definitely go check!  You want to confirm whether a basket was a two or a three?  No problem.  Checking whether a foul should be upgraded to a flagrant?  100 percent.  Resetting the clock every time there's a whistle?  Unnecessary!

Women's games were made painfully longer a few years ago when the NCAA changed the rules and started allowing them to advance the ball on a timeout in the final minute.  Ever since then, the final minute of women's games, especially close games, have followed a similar pattern.  Foul, timeout, foul, timeout, foul, timeout.  It takes at least 10 minutes to play one, with a maximum of about five seconds coming off the clock between stoppages.  And that's before you add in the replay reviews!

Even without teams being able to advance the ball on timeouts, men's NCAA Tournament games are quickly approaching that territory.  And the excessive use of replays doesn't just kill the momentum, it brings games to a screeching halt!  At the end of games, we spend more time watching the officials watch replays and Gene Steratore breaking down what they're watching than watching actual basketball!  But, hey, at least we get a lot of Gene Steratore out of it!

And there's no denying that replay is a valuable tool.  The whole point is to get calls right, and, when used correctly, replay can help officials do just that.  Too often, though, especially in the NCAA Tournament, replay isn't used as a tool.  It's more of a crutch than anything else.  Since it's there, the officials go to the monitor every chance they get, even when they don't really need to.  And therein lies the problem.

Many of these replay reviews in the last minute are to double check the clock and result in tenths of a second being added.  The reason for this is because they don't use Precision Timing in the NCAA Tournament.  I have no idea why!  With Precision Timing, the clock stops as soon as the official blows their whistle.  By not using it, you're relying on the clock operator's reaction time, which will obviously be slightly delayed.  I know that a lot of NBA arenas aren't set up for Precision Timing (again, not sure why not), so that might be why they don't use it in the NCAA Tournament.  But using it would eliminate a lot of the stoppages that are just to check the clock.

While March Madness is obviously the marquee event that brings this issue into the spotlight, the problem certainly isn't limited to the NCAA Tournament.  It's more prominent in the NCAA Tournament since those games are already longer because of the longer media timeouts and extra commercials, but overreliance on replay is an issue in the regular season and conference tournaments, too.  So much so, in fact, that Jay Bilas made a suggestion that's been echoed by many and could definitely help.  Going to coach's challenges.

Right now, whether they go to the monitor is entirely up to the officials.  Coaches can ask them to look at something, but the officials ultimately have the final say.  More often than not, they'll grant a coach's request, but they aren't required to.  However, since the officials are the only ones who can decide if they go to replay, the game is entirely at their mercy.  And, while the replay rules do limit the type of plays they can look at, there are still plenty of situations where they can (and do).

If coaches had challenges at their disposal, though, replay would be used a lot less liberally.  The officials would still have the ability to review plays on their own in certain situations (potential flagrant fouls, for example), but coach's challenges would, in theory, limit its overuse over the course of the game.  If a coach deems a play important enough to challenge, they can as long as they have challenges remaining (and a timeout available in case the challenge is unsuccessful).  If not, no need to go to replay.

Going to coach's challenges would make the use of replay more strategic, too.  A coach may not want to risk his last timeout on a play where it might've been off them, but they can't tell for sure.  Likewise, do you risk burning a challenge early and not having it later in the game when you might need it?  Give each coach two challenges per game.  If they're right, they get to keep them (as long as they have a timeout).  If they're wrong, it costs them a timeout.  

Every sport that uses replay has some sort of challenge system except for college basketball.  It's time to change that.  Because the sheer volume of reviews in some NCAA Tournament games make them difficult to watch.  There's plenty of excitement on the court.  People want to see that.  Not officials watching TV.