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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAY

October 25, 2016

Curtis Shaw

Kansas City, Missouri

THE MODERATOR: The Big 12 Coordinator of Men's Basketball Officials, Curtis Shaw, is going to make his annual presentation. This is always quite interesting to see the changes upcoming and what they're going to be working with.

Curtis, it's all yours.

CURTIS SHAW: Thank you. Appreciate the time, taking a few minutes to see where we're going this year. You've heard everybody talk about the Big 12, how competitive we are, how hard a league it is as a coach and a player. It's the same thing for referees. It's the greatest league in the world to referee. I think we've had great success. For example, last year, 7 of the 9 officials in the Final Four worked games for us. So I think we've got a great staff, great group to work with, with our coaches and players.

But it's also important that we do what we're supposed to do. The NCAA started a program last year to change the game, to reduce the physicality, and in all truth, get the scoring and excitement back in the game of basketball, which is what it was intended to be. So we started last year with perimeter rules, et cetera, et cetera, that we talked about last year and you saw. The results were good. Scoring went up over five points a game, but we only averaged over 1.1 free throws more. So it wasn't just a free throw contest, the game was getting better.

This year is a non officially rules passing year, but the Rules Committee is allowed to make tweaks to what has already occurred. And they've done that this year to increase what we did last year to bring in different parts of the game and to change drastically two parts of the game, the restricted area play and the cylinder play with all the guys getting elbowed.

So I want to go through some clips, and then we'll take questions and try to clear some things up.

The restricted area play changed. Last year this was not necessarily a foul. The defenders walled up, he's in the restricted area, but he does nothing wrong. Anywhere else on the court he's legal. But they don't want that in the restricted area. So we put in a new interpretation this year that if contact occurs in the restricted area, even though it's initiated by the offense and the defensive player doesn't leave his feet and go vertical, it will be a blocking foul if the shot's missed. Now, if he makes the shot and the contact's not severe, we're going to probably play through it. But here where he misses the shot, we want a blocking foul every time.

Then a play here. Anywhere else on the floor, this defender's legal and draws the charge. Because it's in the restricted area, it's got to be a blocking foul. That contact is more than incidental, so we have an and-one on the play and a possible three-point play. But you cannot be a defender and be in the restricted area with your body touching the floor.

Again, same play. Legal anywhere on the court, but because the shot is missed, we have a blocking foul. As you can see, none of these were called last year. Well, the second play was because of the severity of contact.

Now, here's what they want. Here's how the NCAA wants this play refereed. The defender goes vertical, they squared up to his player. Makes the contact basically in his chest. As long as he's made a legitimate attempt to jump, not block the shot, he doesn't have to swat at the ball or any of that, but a legitimate attempt to jump and go vertical, then he's going to be legal. Same play. Squared up, leave the floor, vertical, good defense.

What you can't do, as this next play shows, if you start to go up vertical and the offensive player is good enough to turn and slip you, you cannot turn in any way. In this play, 12, white, stop, goes up, but now the offensive player tries to cut behind him. So the defender ends up hitting him across the right side of his body. This is a foul on the defense. So I have to be vertical and I basically have to take it in my chest. If I turn in any way, I'm going to still be called for a defensive foul.

So the restricted area is going to be a big change. You're going to have what seems like minimal contact that's going to be a foul. The reasoning, the Rules Committee do not want you in that restricted area. They're trying to open the court up to create more offensive style basketball.

Part two of what we're going to enforce this year more and more is the travel. If we're not going to allow the defense to come out, put hands on, do the other things we used to do, we cannot let the offensive player get away with steps. The Rules Committee foundation for this is it's our job, coaches and players, to play fundamentally correct. So if I'm allowing the half step, the split step to start a dribble, the defense has no chance, okay. In this case, he jumps off the right foot and puts the right foot back down in order to get his shot off. We want this called. Right foot, now the only way he can get the shot off is to take that extra step. Well, the defense has no chance. We want to call this.

This play here is a perfect example. Right foot comes off the ground, now he steps down. Now he catches it and does the jump step too. This is two travels. Right here on the perimeter has never been called. Your defender's not up close, you're 35 feet from the basket, what does it matter? It matters if we're giving them an advantage to walk in and play. So it's going to be different, but we want these eliminated, even with no pressure.

Here's a play in the post, where he clearly steps, shuffles, whatever, instead of getting a travel, we call a foul, so he ends up with a three-point play. That was our fault as officials because our mechanics and coverage wasn't good. So the reason I wanted to show this is we've changed who covers this play. The lead, the kid that called the foul, is so tied up in the play and the contact, he doesn't see the feet. So we've now made it the responsibility of the two outside officials to call travel in the post. This is going to be different, because as I told the coaches this morning, if a guy's standing by you and he calls the travel, don't yell, hey, wait, there is a guy standing right there. Because it's no longer the guy standing right there's job. It is the outside two officials' job who have a better look and aren't worried about the foul. Okay?

Another example of how a post player gets away. Left foot, left foot. A double hop in order to get the shot off. We want these called now. Post play is a part of physicality we really didn't address well last year, and they've decided if we're ever going to get good offensive post play again, we can't allow it to become a wrestling match, as some of these plays will show.

So what we've taught the officials to do is this. Call the first foul. When the offensive player comes down and blows a guy up, turn and post, call the foul right away. Even though the ball may be at half court. When the offensive player comes down and posts with his arm out, call the foul right away.

We want post players to have to post using their butt and bent elbows. Anytime they stretch their arm out, call it right away.

Number two, if they post legally with bent elbows, don't let the defense lay on their back. Make them play. We put the forearm rule in last year to brace themselves to make the defense play legal. Number four there, which is a controversial one, is double fouls are now good. Used to be when you called a double foul, everybody said it was a bail out. But there are plays that we'll see one, when they do it simultaneously, call it double foul. Lot of our coaches expressed concern like the Rules Committee coaches did, we don't have many good post players. What if they get in a foul early? Well, the Rules Committee said that was their fault. We have to teach them how to play legally. So if your best player is your post player and he gets two fouls in two minutes, that's your fault. Not the referees, don't blame them.

So in order to clean the game up, we're going to enforce things we hadn't before so everybody learns how to adjust.

This was pretty easy. The kid comes across and throws his right arm out. Even though the ball is never involved, even though he doesn't get it, we want that called immediately. Boom. We had the theory in officiating before that you let the post players settle like this. Here he's got his left arm out, his right arm, and he hits them across the face and we call it a ticky-tack foul. So right there we want to foul on the offensive post player, right there. Before the ball gets there, which he eliminates this ticky-tack foul. Make them post legally. Same thing. Offensive player comes down with his arms out and holds the defender back. He's fine using his bottom like he does, but he can't have his arm extended. You have to post the bent elbow or first foul is on the offense. Here's a play where he posts with his arms bent, and the defender sticks his left arm over and grabs him. Even though the ball never comes in there, we want this to be a foul on the defense. So good job of posting, using your butt. Bent arms, 2 white gets on top of him, call it immediately. Even though the ball is never involved, let him have the opportunity.

Here's the case of a double foul. Post player in red immediately has his arm back. Kid in white immediately wraps him around the stomach. Does one happen a second before the other? Probably. But they're close enough to be simultaneously a double foul to clean up the post. Because watch what they end up doing. When we do this, now look at this wrestling match. That has to stop. Call a double foul right there, both are illegal and get it cleaned up. Rebounding. Post play and rebounding are the two parts of physicality we haven't done a good job at, so we really defined how to box out and how you can't box out.

This is kind of an exaggeration because it's easy. But the intent is to show that if you want to teach, and as I told the coaches, if you want to teach to face a guy in order to then steal him, you cannot be the one who initiates the contact. You can turn and face him and he can run into you, but if you seek him out, we want a foul on the kid that initiates the contact.

Same thing on this play. The kid underneath the basket, because he do a great job of settling and boxing hard? No. But the fact of the matter is he's in front. We let white put two hands on him, and then push him with the forearm. We want these called every time. Rebounding is gosh awful. Here a kid hooks him under the arm and pulls him aside. This is an NBA trick move. These are things that even though they're not really involved with the ball and it goes long, that's the foul on the kid in the second lane space that we have to get cleaned up. Here's an example, 13 red stepping under. Stop.

The Rules Committee statement was, and some of our coaches don't really agree with me, you're getting a wide open 15-foot shot. We need to learn to shoot 80% from the free-throw line instead of 40% from the free-throw line. When you've been given a wide-open, uncontested 15-foot shot, the kid in the second lane space doesn't have the right to the basketball unless the inside guy doesn't do his job in ceiling or the ball comes along or you run some kind of trick.

It's no more shoving him under the basket because you're bigger and stronger, okay? In this case, red shoves you under the basket, and we end up getting a foul on what, what can 13 red do? He can step across the lane toward his teammate. But as soon as he goes down under, we want a foul on the rebound.

Now, the one that's going to cause the most controversy early, the elbow is still under play. We put the elbow rule in college basketball. It was to clear up head injury. It was never intended to allow the defense to get so close that an offensive player cannot swing the ball from side-to-side or swing it to put it on the floor to dribble or shoot.

But somehow we ended up with all these plays that were elbow plays when all a kid's trying to do is make a basketball move. So we totally changed the interpretation. If I have the ball from my shoulders above or from my waist below, I have a cylinder that wherever the front of that ball is, it's my space. I can do anything in that space movement-wise I want to.

If the defense gets hit, the onus is on the defense. It's going to be controversial because we're going to have a kid laying there with a bloody nose or broken jaw, and the foul's going to be on him. But as we told the coaches, don't get that close. Allow him to make a basketball move. How are we going to referee it? It's all based on the position of the forearm. If the forearms are vertical, I'm legal. I can make any movement other than stepping out of my space, and the onus is on the defense. If I'm chest level, my forearms go parallel. Now I'm clearing space, and the foul will be on the offense still.

Here's a play that was nationally an elbow foul last year. So even though Buddy's crossing over, right here he's in his space, swings the ball, and the defender comes up toward him. You'll see the baseline view. Right now the defender cannot get any closer than that. He has the right to swing the ball side-to-side because his forearms are vertical. Contact occurs, he not only has a bloody nose, he has a foul. Same thing on this play. There is my cylinder. The defense keeps moving forward that by the time I pivot, mostly with my upper body, not stepping into him, boom. The intent, we don't want the defense that close. That was never the intent of basketball. You have to allow a player to make a good offensive skill move. Forearms vertical. The key to that is what the referees will look for. We have erred on telling them to call the foul on the defense. Why? Because if we do, now we're going to go to the monitor and check it. If we see and know the defense didn't invade if the offense was out, we can take the foul off the defense, and we can call a flagrant foul on the offense. However, if we call it on the offense, and figure out, no, it wasn't. It should have been defense, we can take the foul off the offense, but we cannot penalize the defense. So we're going to err on calling on the defense, and all we're going to look at is where are his forearms and in the next play, did the offense initiate the contact by stepping forward?

Here's a case where the offense initiates the contact by going forward into him. That's still an offensive, flagrant 1 foul. Because you now invaded the defensive cylinder. The defense wasn't coming at you.

What we don't want to have happen is get confused about a play that's an offensive foul. In this case, this is not swinging the basketball above your head or below your waist. This is pivoting and using your off arm to clear space. This is still an offensive foul. Again, his forearm's not vertical, which is going to be our first trigger to go look at. But you can't use your arms to clear space.

Same type play. Offensive player, in order to clear space, uses his off arm to create the contact. Different from making a normal basketball move. This will still be an offensive flagrant foul.

On the last play, we're going to show an example of how shooting is a natural basketball move. Is that it? Okay. When I say that, we had a play that I must have taken out where he ends his dribble and starts to go up and shoot and his elbow hits the defensive player. That's no different than pivoting side-to-side. If I'm in a natural shooting motion, then I'm legal, and the defense has to stay out of my cylinder. So the restricted area interpretation, the elbow interpretation, cylinder interpretation are going to be the two things that are going to cause the most heartache early, as I said in the cylinder play. When the guy's laying there with the broken jaw and the foul's on him, people aren't going to understand it. But that's where the media, coaches and announcers are being taught that's right. We don't want them playing that close of defense.

Any questions? Must have done good this year.

Q. (No Microphone)?
CURTIS SHAW: It's going to be difficult, but luckily we knew this in December, so we have taught this all summer, through all of our training sessions we've taught it, through our NCAA meeting three weeks ago that we have, we taught it. To the part where they go to the NCAA clinic, we taught it.

So they've heard it for five or six months. We started our closed scrimmages, inner-squad practices, we tell them to go work on it. In the cylinder play, because it's a flagrant foul with the elbow, we can use the monitor to review, which will help. So we can go correct and try not to get it wrong, because we use it. But it's going to take some getting used to. Calling the travel close to the basket when there is no defender close is going to take some getting used to. The coaches have concerns about the post play, because kids don't know how to come down and post up. And no disrespect to our coaches, because by the time they get them, they've got all these bad habits from everywhere they've grown up as a kid. But they have to learn how to post legally. They can't do this, which is their natural instinct. It will be a learning curve, but I think we did so good last year with the scoring and styles of play, the Rules Committee is willing to do some more things.

Q. It seems like contact will sometimes be anticipated and you'll get a call and you go back and look at the play. The guy wasn't even touched. Just will that be addressed? Has that been discussed lately?
CURTIS SHAW: The way it's been discussed is that's what makes a referee elevate and one who struggles. You cannot anticipate. We teach them anticipate the play that may occur, but don't anticipate a foul's going to occur. A lot of it is in fast-break position. You just aren't in good position. So we've taught them it's better to not blow than it is to blow, and like you said, the guy cut in front and didn't even touch him. So it's kind of a two-edged sword, and the fast plays to play. We're willing to be a little gray on and get beat. When we first put in three-person officiating, one referee stood at half court just so he wouldn't get beat. But you're not helping out where the game is in the front court. So it may occur, we just have to continue to work with them.

Q. How do you plan on handling the disruption of the pace of play and rhythm of the game if a lot of these fouls are being called and teams aren't necessarily adjusting to how the game's being called?
CURTIS SHAW: As the Rules Committee said, they have to adjust. It's not the Rules' or the referees' job to say, oh, we're not going to call this because it will slow the game down. It's their job to adjust.

Referees are only the bearer of the bad news, you know, we don't vote on this. We don't pass the rules. We're not on the Rules Committee, but we're the ones that have to enforce them. And, again, we had so much success last year that they're willing to undertake some of these hard deals. Now, if you're going for a monitor review in the first five minutes of the game, get in and get out. You don't need to look at it ten times. Get in and get out. If it's game deciding in the last 20 seconds, yeah, you're going to take longer to be sure the game's going to end properly.

But that's some of the things we can do to speed up, but we can't worry about them. We have to change the way we play the game. Basketball was meant to score in the 70, 80, 90 points, not this 55-50 game we had a couple years ago. In order to do that, we'll have growing pains. But last year we averaged an hour and 59 minutes. We were inside the two-hour window, even though everybody panicked about all the calls. It didn't happen.

Q. (No Microphone)?
CURTIS SHAW: Do what you're told to do. Part of being a good official and being at the level of the Big 12, you have to be able to handle these guys too. And as we teach them, and as I say, I didn't make these rules, coaches did, I have to enforce them. You cannot play this way.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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