Apr 4, 2021
5 ways to fix the end of college basketball games
Basketball doesn’t get much more exciting than the final stretch of last night’s Gonzaga-UCLA men’s basketball game, or Friday night’s Stanford-South Carolina women’s basketball game.
After being deprived of postseason college basketball last year, we’ve seen some absolutely great games in both NCAA tournaments the last few weeks.
But seeing so much college basketball in a three-week span reminds me just how brutal the last couple minutes of a basketball game can be to watch.
After back-and-forth action for the first hour and 45 minutes, most of these games climax with 15 to 20 minutes of players mostly walking up and down the court. It just doesn’t seem right.
Imagine watching a hockey game in which the last two minutes of game time were 15 minutes of commercials with a handful of penalty shots sprinkled in. The peak of those games just wouldn’t feel the same.
Here are some ideas that could improve college basketball games from start to finish, especially those last couple minutes.
Give teams fewer timeouts
The biggest thing slowing games down at the end is that so many timeouts are called. Some tight games feel like there’s a timeout between every possession.
In 2015, the NCAA approved a reduction of timeouts from five to four, which was — at best — a half-measure toward fixing this problem. If teams really need four timeouts per game, why do they always have two or three left over when the clock hits two minutes?
With so many TV timeouts — there are four in each half in the men’s game — these team timeouts aren’t necessary. Until the two-minute mark, timeouts are pretty much only used for one reason: stopping the game when the other team is on a run to thwart their momentum. You know what else could accomplish that same goal? Playing better defense, or making a pivotal shot on offense.
I’d give teams one timeout per game. If that’s too drastic, how about one per half? These games would feel so much more exciting to watch if they were only stopped once or twice in the final couple minutes.
Play quarters instead of halves
I’ve written about this in another newsletter, but it’s worth repeating: Women’s college basketball has superior rules to men’s college basketball.
In 2015, the women’s game switched from 20-minute halves to 10-minute quarters. The actual length of the game is the same, but the women’s game flows much better.
The reason why is that team fouls reset each quarter, instead of each half. When teams reach five fouls in a quarter, the opposing team goes straight into the double bonus. There are no 1-and-1s. These rules are very similar to the rules used by the NBA, WNBA and in international competitions.
How many men’s games have we seen in this tournament — and all season long — in which teams reach the bonus with 10 or 12 minutes left in the half, setting up a free-throw showcase for the other team that lasts for a quarter of the game? Way too many. That never happens in the women’s game.
Now, does switching to quarters directly make the last two minutes of a game better to watch? Not necessarily. But it makes the entire half feel like less of a slog. If you don’t believe me, watch the women’s championship game tonight. You’ll be impressed with how much better the game flows from start to finish.
Get rid of 1-and-1s
I glossed over it before, but the absolute best part of the women’s game is that there are no 1-and-1s.
I say this with 100 percent seriousness: There is not a dumber rule in any sport than the rule that forces teams to shoot 1-and-1s when they’re fouled for the seventh, eighth and ninth time in a half.
The purpose of the bonus is allegedly to penalize teams for committing too many fouls. You commit too many fouls, your opponent gets to shoot free throws. But how much of a penalty is it really to send the opponent to the line for a 1-and-1?
I think most coaches would probably rather let the other team shoot a 1-and-1 than let them run their offense. Best case — and this happens plenty — your opponent misses the first shot and you get the ball back. Worst case, they make both and you’ve given up two points. You don’t have to worry about giving up three points, and it’s fairly likely that you’ll only give up zero or one.
I read a thread on Twitter the other day in which someone suggested that a smart strategy would be, once you’re in the bonus, to purposely foul a poor free throw shooter on three straight possessions. He’s not wrong. And that’s exactly why this rule is so stupid. It was clearly created as a way to give trailing teams a shortcut to get back into the game, rather than to penalize teams that commit too many fouls.
Men’s college basketball is the highest level of basketball still using this absurd rule.
It might not directly help improve the final minutes of the games, but getting rid of 1-and-1s would make the entire game infinitely better from start to finish.
(A change that would really fix the end of basketball games would be to give teams two shots in the bonus, and two shots plus the ball in the double bonus. Teams would really have limit the number of fouls they commit in the second half, or it would be almost impossible to get the ball back when trailing late in a game. I don’t think this would ever be adopted, but it would be a total game changer.)
Disincentivize teams from fouling when up by 3
I saw several games, on both the men’s and women’s sides, in which teams purposely committed fouls in the final seconds to protect a three-point lead.
It’s a good idea, but it’s also a really boring one for the viewer. We’re watching teams shoot free throws to cut the lead rather than seeing them try to hit a 3-pointer to tie it.
So I started thinking about how to disincentivize teams from doing this, and I came up with a pretty simple idea that wouldn’t just help with this situation, but would probably also help move the game along in the final minutes.
How about treating all fouls like shooting fouls once teams reach the double bonus? Meaning, if you’re outside the 3-point arc when you’re fouled, you get three free throws instead of two.
This would make teams think twice about fouling when leading by three with a few seconds left. Would they rather give up three free throws than let their opponent look to shoot a 3? Maybe sometimes, but not as often.
This would also give teams less of an incentive to foul to try to get the ball back, because they’d be giving their opponent three free throws — instead of two — if they commit the foul further than 22 feet from the basket.
I don’t think such a rule has ever been tested at any level of basketball, but I’d be interested to see how it would play out. If anything, I think it would keep teams from fouling until the final 20 seconds or so, rather than trying to start extending the game by fouling with a couple minutes left.
Adopt the Elam Ending
This is definitely the most drastic idea, so it’s pretty unlikely to be adopted. But there’s a whole lot of merit to it.
A college professor came up with something called the Elam Ending, and it’s actually garnered enough attention to be used at the NBA All-Star Game and in a popular basketball tournament for former college players called The Basketball Tournament: TBT.
Here’s the short explanation: The game is played with a clock, until there are four minutes left in the game. At that point, the clock is turned off and a target number is set equal to 10 + the number of points that the leading team has. The first team to reach the target number wins.
Because there’s no clock, there’s no reason to foul to try to extend the game. All you’d be doing would be giving the opponent free points to get closer to the target number.
Without a clock, there’s also no reason for the leading team to try to sit on the ball and milk the clock (ahem, Rutgers).
Instead, the game keeps moving on both ends.
The Elam Ending also adds excitement to the end of the games because every game ends with a walk-off shot. There are no buzzer beaters, because there’s no buzzer, but you’re guaranteed to see a walk-off every time.
Also, these games can’t go into overtime. They just go until someone reaches the target number.
I watched some clips of the TBT, and the Elam Ending is pretty exciting. It looks a lot more like the basketball we grew up playing with our friends — first to 21 wins! — than the basketball dictated by coaches trying to bend the clock in their favor.
Would this ending ever really be adopted by the NCAA? I doubt it. But I think we’d all enjoy it more than the foul-and-timeout parade we currently get to see.
Thanks so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed this newsletter. If you have thoughts and feedback, I’d love to hear from you. Every newsletter will be posted to this website, so you can comment there. You can also email me directly at this address.
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