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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAY

October 24, 2018

Curtis Shaw

Kansas City, Missouri

THE MODERATOR: We're going to have a special presentation by Men's Basketball Officials Coordinator, Curtis Shaw. He will explain the new rules and take questions from the floor. Curtis?

CURTIS SHAW: Great, thank you. It's always nice to take a few minutes and talk about the focus of the coming season. The directions come from the Men's Basketball Rules Committee as well as the NCAA bosses, so I want y'all to understand them. There are a few strange things this year. There are two words that really came up in the Rules Committee this year. They want deception and danger taken out of the game, so they have designed some rules and interpretations to try to help with player safety and to keep players from trying to learn to do the deceptive plays.

Coaches talk about how great and hard of a league it is, from a refereeing standpoint, but our staff is the best in the country, 8 of the 10 guys that work the Final Four all work games in the Big 12. I think that is exemplary of what we do in the league, in that it is very difficult to referee. Let's get started on what we are looking at. We've got clips that will help us out. One of the main focuses is on screens, seems like all our offenses are on high-ball screens, pick and rolls, etc... So we have had to focus on making screens legal. We've put in the rules where the defense can't touch, get physical, so we can't allow the offense to do illegal plays on top of that. Here are some examples of screens that we are focused on and here are the type of plays that we want out of the game and when y'all are doing media work, you can say that's a point of emphasis. We gotta get this cleaned up. The first one is pretty easy, guy uses his butt and sets a back screen, picks the guy off, leaves a wide-open 3 pointer. We're focused on moving screens, in order to set a legal screen you must be stationery. You don't necessarily have to face him but you have to be stationery. You then can't use an "unnatural" movement such as sticking your butt out to have a screen. Okay?

Another example play thatâ€™s coming in, kids running up the baseline going up court big guy with the elbow setting a screen. Another play we have to be stationery on because it leads to a wide open 3-point shot. So major focus is to get legal plays on screens. A real point of emphasis this year is the wide screen.

By rule you can set a screen with the inside of your foot even with the outside of your shoulders, like I'm standing now. When you get wide like this kid does you're now illegal. Even if the defender runs into your chest and doesn't hit the extended wide foot you're considered to be in an illegal position and are employing to get called for an illegal screen. As I talk to our teams and coaches I stress to the players to get a strong base, but you can't get outside your framework.

The dribble hand-off is a huge part of our game. We did a good job with it last year. A guideline that we are now teaching with and what I've told our coaches and players is once you hand the ball off you're considered a screener; therefore, you must either come to a stop or totally avoid the defensive player on your own. You don't become a cutter until, as a guideline, now. It's not written in the rule book this way, but as a guideline until you've taken three full steps after handing it off. Now you're considered a cutter. Then if you run into people it may be chucking the cutter. It may be incidental. But before that point you cannot run into a cutter who is going over or under trying to chase the ball handler.

Here is a great example of the pick and roll. We have questions all the time. You will hear the TV announcer saying â€œI don't understand, he's just rolling down the laneâ€, but in this example, he goes to set a screen. However, the defensive player never makes contact with the screener. He stops to go underneath the screen before any contact. So in this case, the kid who is trying to set a screen becomes a roller and it's a moving screen. Right now the defender goes under, he rolls down the lane line and picks him off. That's an illegal screen.

The next play will help show us the difference on why it's now legal to roll. In this case the guy sets a screen, the defender actually runs into him. Once he runs into him, the screening part is over, he now becomes a cutter. So he now can make contact, roll down the lane line. If he picks him off, he's not illegal. So the guideline we tell referees, and again what I tell our coaches and players, is a lot of times it's the ball handler's fault. He doesn't let the screener do his job, but in order to have a screen and roll there has to be contact with the screener and then he can roll and pick him off. If there is no contact he can't roll and pick him off.

Here is an example of what we talked about after a pass or a hand-off in taking the steps. In this example, the kid throws the pass. He then takes three full steps down the lane line, the defensive player in red cuts in front of him. Now he's no longer a ball handler, he's a cutter and this should have been called an illegal screen on the team in red because he slides over and impedes his ability to cut. Again, using that three-step guideline he became a cutter.

Here is an example where he becomes a cutter. However, he then changes direction back into the defensive player. So right here he passes it off three steps, but then he plants that left foot and hops to the right, so he's now made himself a screener again.

I wanted to show these two different plays to show how complex it is and referees have to make this judgment in fast motion. We're pretty good in slow-motion film, but he has to decide, does he make a legitimate cut or plant and move into the pass of the defender who is trying to go over which leads to a wide open 3-point shot?

The other part of it is that we had coaches that were starting to teach that if you see a screener coming to set a screen, speed up and run through him. He will get an illegal screen because he never got there and got set. As I said before, one of the key words for the Rules Committee was danger. This is considered a dangerous play. So we've now put in a new rule where if a guy sets an illegal screen in which he is clearly still moving on this play but you can see the defender speeds up and blow him up, we say. In a case like this we are going to have a double foul. It's not only a foul for an illegal screen, it's also a foul on the kid in black for excessively contacting the screener.

This could even be a flagrant one foul if you consider the contact to be extreme. All right? So coaches, if you're going to run an illegal screen don't try to be the tough guy and blow him up.

Probably the most controversial thing you're going to see all year are these plays, the hook and hold. Most of this came down because of what happened to the kid from Purdue in the NCAA tournament. They put in a severe penalty. In this case, 10 white comes from behind, he hooks the guy underneath and then he wants to act like he's the one who got hooked. That's the deception part they want out of the game. In this case, because of the way he hooked him, this is a flagrant foul. This is not just a common foul. This is a flagrant one foul due to the fact that he's trying to deceive by initiating the hook, okay?

There are times on rebounds you may both go up and your arms get hooked together and as long as you untangle you're fine, but in a play like this where he seeks out, hooks under and then acts like he got held, we now have to have a flagrant one foul.

This is the play that we all saw all year long, big kid from Purdue, comes down, kid in front hooks him, throws him backwards, he ends up shattering his elbow, he's out of the NCAA tournament and the Rules Committee felt this had to be addressed. In a case where you hook a kid and put him in a dangerous situation by throwing him backwards, pulling him down, whatever, it's now a flagrant two foul. You're automatically ejected from the basketball dame. Severe? Absolutely. But this is big in the NBA. They want them to learn how to hook, hold and fake. Our Rules Committee does not want this to occur. We're going to put in a severe rule that hopefully stops that.

Here is another example where a kid hooks and holds. You can see the kid in black. He gets beat, grabs him by the arm and pulls him down. Even though he didn't go all the way to the floor, because he put him in a potentially dangerous situation where he could have face planted, this is a flagrant two foul. He will be ejected for this. They want it out of the game. So as media, you're watching the game, you see this and say â€œI don't understand why he got thrown out, he didn't fall down?â€, the risk of serious danger is why they stopped that.

That's what we've got to focus on for this year. That's an example of the controversy that's going to occur on the hook and hold plays. Because of the hook and the hold play, they also put in a rule about protective equipment. We've always had it as if it was deemed to be dangerous, they can't wear it. Our rule book says it's the referee's decision only and the NCAA and their medical staff said if you put a half inch of rebounding foam on stuff, he could possibly play. However, if the referee deems that the cast under there is still too hard, it could hit a guy in the head and cause a concussion protocol, it might have a piece of metal on there, it's solely the referee's decision whether the kid can play or not. The team doctor or trainer can't say it's okay, because if a kid gets hurt it's solely on the referee. So you might see a kid come in on Tuesday and play and on Saturday he can't play. It's a bad rule, it's bad that the medical staff doesn't make the decision, the referee is liable, but it is what it is. So if we have injured players that try to play and all of the sudden they can't play one night and you have questions, that's the reason. Any questions I can help with?

Q. It is my understanding that the NCAA they see that and they do not want that a part of the game? Even though the NBA believes it helps spacing and game flow and all that?
CURTIS SHAW: You've got to remember the NBA is different than college basketball. They play 82 games and they're trying to sell 15,000 tickets at $100 apiece. They're a business. Their rules and interpretations may differ from our, where we have student-athletes that we're trying to prevent danger and injury. So our Rules Committee wants our rules to address that. We do not want deception or that type of showmanship or that potential risk for danger. So we do have different interpretations based on the difference in games.

Thanks, everybody. We look forward to a great season.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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