As there is with college sports, there is an ever-changing landscape in all sports. College basketball is looking to expand the NCAA Tournament, a bad idea, but they are making some rule changes that will help with the pace of play in the sport.
The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved rule changes to help the flow of college basketball games, and they are giving coaches some power. The biggest eye-opening rule change is a coach’s challenge, which can be used at any point throughout the game so long as the challenging team still has a timeout remaining. In all honesty, this is something that the sport has been needing for a while, and it's good to see it finally inserted into the game. The rule will be like the rule in the NBA in terms of winning the challenge.
"If the instant replay review challenge is successful, teams will be allowed to have one additional video review challenge for the rest of the game, including overtime."
"If the first video review challenge is unsuccessful, the team loses the ability to challenge the rest of the game."
College basketball needed coaches challenges
Coaches can challenge out-of-bounds calls, basket interference, and whether a secondary defender was in the restricted area of the arc, which is always a difficult call in the pace of play. This is something that has been needed in college basketball, and following the NBA script is the way for them to go. It will be interesting to see how teams go about using this challenge, will some use it early, or will they save it for later in the game?
Virginia Tech coach Mike Young will be like other coaches and rely on his assistant coaches to help decide whether or not to challenge a call. This is something that should stick around even after the coaches' feedback after next season. This is a solid move for the sport.