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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S MEDIA DAYOctober 22, 2013Curtis ShawKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: Curtis Shaw, who is the men's basketball officials coordinator for the Big 12, is going to give you some information and take your questions. He's going to wander around in the front, so we'll try to keep this officiated pretty well here. CURTIS SHAW: Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for letting me be here. We started this last year, and I think it's a great way to get our message out to your constituents and the people you talk to. This year is an exciting year in basketball. I know you've all heard about it and seen a lot of stuff and heard a lot of coach's comments. I think for the betterment of the game, the Rules Committee, the Men's Basketball Committee is really undertaking some great steps to change the style of play and to make the game a little more exciting, a little higher scoring. I think everything we've done is of a very positive nature. I've been around visiting all of our coaches. They understand it. They know it. There are different degrees of acceptability. There is a lot of angst trying to figure out if they're going to do this the whole year, how are we going to handle this. But I think all in all it's been really a great thing. I brought some film clips to show you some examples of what went on in the past that we used to get away with, and this year they're going to be fouls. The intent of these rules is not to shoot more free throws. I've heard a lot of this. All you want to do is shoot more free throws. That is not the intent at all. One of the unintended consequences early may be more fouls. But we have the greatest athletes we've ever had in college basketball. We've got the smartest coaches we've ever had in college basketball, and they'll adjust. It's just a matter of getting used to what the new situations are and breaking some bad habits because our kids have played so long doing certain things. I think we'll go through a little bit of a growth period. But because we started so early talking to them‑‑ I've been to our practices, and the coaches are talking to them every day. I don't think it's going to be that bad. I think in the long run, it's really going to help our game and really increase the scoring. It's going to increase the fan interest and increase the media interest. So I think it's all going to be really great. Brought some film clips of types of plays I want to show, and we'll talk about them a little bit. But the two biggest rules for this year that are changes are the perimeter play, and it's the contact on the perimeter ball handler. In the past, these rules were always in the rule book, but they were in the back of the rule book. They were under guidelines, points of emphasis. The Rules Committee decided this was so important they moved it into the actual rule, Section 10 in the rule book, and said these are no longer judgment calls. These are no longer plays that we're going to give you some leeway to decide if it matters or not. If these four things happen, it's an automatic foul. If you continually jab at a player, it's an automatic foul. We say continual. We'll let a player close out. We'll let them touch them and measure up. But when they keep measuring up, we're going to call a foul. If you stick your hand on them and leave it on them or stick your forearm on them and leave it on them, it's an automatic foul. If you ever put two hands out on a player, it's an automatic foul. Then the one I think is most important because it's how our kids learned how to play is this forearm down here. They do a great job closing out on players, and the minute they go to drive and move, they put this forearm down. We've watched enough film to find out that forearm down here can guide the offensive player wherever they want them, and it's a big change in the game. So none of this contact is allowed anymore. The practices I've been at, the close scrimmages I've been at, the players are figuring out. They close out like they used to, and they're starting to do this. That's exactly what we want to have happen and the powers that be in basketball want to happen. So I think it's a great change for college basketball. Maybe a little growing pains early, but it's going to help the game. The next biggest change we made is in the blocked charge. We started a couple years ago by putting in the restricted arc. It's player safety issues. We know how much we talk about concussions in basketball and football and every other sport. But we don't want a player being able to slide over in the last second and undercut a player who is about to be airborne and can't change his direction. The arc didn't work the way we wanted it to. We still had way too many charging fouls that were never intended to be charges. So they changed the rule to the NBA interpretation, which is the secondary help defender must be set before the offensive player starts any upward motion. That's basically when he hits his plant foot, it's when they show that he started up. That means a secondary defender can't slide under under a defenseless offensive player. Again, it's a safety issue and it's a scoring issue. We want to see kids, if they do a good job beating their primary defender, being able to go to the basket and score. So two big changes. Both for the better of basketball. Both going to be a little confusing early. Both may create some controversy early with the number of fouls. But that's an unintended consequence. It's about making the game better, and our coaches and players will adjust. Here are some examples of plays in the past we've let go. That contact with the left arm, that contact with the left hand, those are now fouls. You can see the consequence in this play. It created a turnover, and it was fully accepted. But the offensive player never had a chance to get his team into their offensive pattern and never had a chance to run his play because 50 feet away from the basket, he's being harassed. That was never the intent of basketball. Another example of coaches saying show your hands and get into them. But you can't create contact as a defensive player. Here we have allowed the defensive player to slide over and show his hands, but definitely stick his body in and it creates a turnover. These are the type of plays and type of illegal contact that the new rules are targeting. The forearm is our kids' favorite move these days. They've learned since day one to show one hand and stick the other arm up. So even though this player beats him on the baseline, this is a foul now. As soon as he extends that forearm, uses it to ride the player, we're going to have a whistle. We're not going to wait to see if he goes ahead makes the basket. There is no judgment about advantage, disadvantage. It is a foul. Don't play with your arms on the offensive player. Left hand, then right hand, typical plays. It doesn't seem like a lot of contact, but as you can see by putting that hand on to measure up, then that hand on to guide him, he loses control of the basketball, so we never get into our offense even with that kind of contact. No more double hand check. Measure up one time and keep your hands off the offensive player. Seems like a slight deal, but by being able to stick my left hand out and keeping the offensive player from getting where he wants to in the middle, automatic fouls now. No more judgment. Automatic calls. We talk about perimeter players. A perimeter player is anyone with the basketball not in the lane area, facing the basket. So whereas the big man pops out right here, and that's not where the foul was, once he turns and squares up, even though he may be the five man, he's now the perimeter player. So the same rules are going to apply. This hand on the hip is a play that the Rules Committee really talked about, but they watched a lot of film and actually had an ex‑player come in who had hands about this long. He said, if you let me put my hand right here, I can take you wherever I want to. You can't even tell I'm pushing. So, again, a play like this where he just puts it on and reaches around, these are going to be automatic fouls. Blocked charge. The second rule we changed the interpretation of. Again, it was about safety, and it's also about freeing up the offensive player. There is a play that in the past it looks pretty good. As a referee, you're always taught from day one, if it hits him square in the chest, you've probably got a charge. When you watch his play and he ends his dribble and starts his upward motion, the defender definitely takes that half step sideways. The offensive player had nowhere to adjust and nowhere to change. So why would we penalize him for making a move by the defender moving sideways? Part of the blocked charge rule is we didn't do a great job refereeing it. It was a hard play to see when a defender was set when your foot left the floor. This gives ‑‑ the new interpretation gives the officials a longer window to see the whole play and to figure out was the defender legal or not. It's not about drawing a charge. It's not about calling charges. We don't want more charges. But if the defender is not legal, we cannot penalize the offensive player. Here's an example where a defender still can get there and help as a secondary defender. So the play still happened. But he has to get there and get set before the offensive player ends his dribble and begins his upward motion. This is the type of play that we just want to make sure we have some kind of whistle. Under the old interpretation‑‑ this happened to be in our tournament a couple years ago, I watched this play, and it's technically a charge in the old interpretation because he gets there before he leaves the floor. But that is not the kind of play the Rules Committee wanted, so now it makes it easy to call that a blocking foul. Again, Withey is going up. He's got nowhere to go and changes direction. The defensive player is allowed to slide underneath him right now and gets a charge under the old interpretation. But the intent of that play is not to penalize an offensive player who has made a good move and beat his man. So now under the new rule, it's a blocking foul. Restricted area that we thought would really help the game, we averaged .8 restricted area plays a game, so it just never happened. But a perfect example, anytime a player has any part of his feet either in or over the restricted area line, it's always a blocking foul. That's good. Let's cut those. I think that gives you an idea of what the Rules Committee and the Basketball Committee is trying to do. It's not about creating more offense. It's not about keeping teams from playing defense. It's about allowing basketball to be the free‑flowing athletic game it was always intended to be. I think these are for the betterment of the game. Like I said, maybe an unintended consequence early will be more fouls, but the players are really good. Our coaches are really smart, and they're going to adjust and change rapidly, and it's going to help the game. Any questions? Q. What's the biggest concern you're hearing from the coaches? CURTIS SHAW: We've had points of emphasis and guidelines from my 30 years of basketball. Coaches say you'll come out in November, December, and do a great job of calling it, and conference season hits and you don't call it anymore. It's just going to be the same. What I try to tell them is this is different. It's not a point of emphasis. It's not a guideline. They moved it from the back of the rule book to the front. It is now written in Section 10 fouls. Referees have been told this must be called all year long, because it's a rule. There is no judgment. If you do these things, it's a penalty. So I think that's been part of the coaches' angst. Do I change the way I coach? Do I change the way I play defense? And in January and February we're penalized. So we're trying to reassure them this is nationwide. We have another conference call today with all the coordinators and the NCAA to make sure we're all saying the right things. The Men's Basketball Committee, the men's LLC, the Rules Committee is all saying this is for the betterment of the game. So I think that's been the coaches' biggest concerns is is it going to be called all year long. Q. With these new rules, do you think it will be harder for teams to play a more full court press‑type defense? CURTIS SHAW: I'm not a coach, so I don't want to answer for them. What I've seen in practices and scrimmages so far is you really cannot guard a full‑court, man‑to‑man in your face like we've allowed. Our coaches used to teach because we allowed it. Get right up in them when they try to make a move, make contact, drive them one way or the other. From what I've seen so far, you can still press. You can still press full court. It's not the intent to take that out. But it's more you guide a player one way or the other, drive him into a double team as opposed to just attacking the basketball. So I think there will still be a lot of full court press. It will just be a different kind. Q. The examples you were showing were basically all on the ball. How much emphasis is being put on away from the ball, kids cutting, and the freedom of movement and things like that? CURTIS SHAW: For the last three years that's been an emphasis. We want that freedom of movement. We still have that same emphasis. When we talk to our referees during the summer, during our clinics, we say the same things. If they want to play defense, make them play by sliding their feet. If you're trying to take a cutter, trying to hold him, bump him off a spot, it's still a foul. So that really hasn't changed. We want to allow the total freedom of movement for the ball handler and all the players that are cutting, moving, et cetera. Q. I've talked to a lot of coaches who have obviously concerns. How do you play tough defense in college basketball this year with the new rules? CURTIS SHAW: I'm not a coach, so I don't know how to answer that. But I will tell you the focus of playing tough, physical defense was never the game of basketball. The game of basketball‑‑ the NBA went through this cycle back in the year 1999‑2000, and their scoring had gone from the 120 points a game to 100 points a game to 80 points a game. That's when they realized they had let it get too physical. So we want you to be able to play defense. But it's always been you play defense by keeping your hands up, slide your feet and keep your body in front. The fact of the matter of the ball handlers getting into the offensive players was never one of the ten rules of basketball. If you go back to look at those ten rules, it clearly says to hold, push, trip. It's always an issue. So I think we're just really going back to the rules of basketball, saying let's go back to playing an athletic game, not a physical game. Q. Most of the questions have been about players and coaches adjusting. This is an adjustment for the officials too. I'm curious, is there a plan of more‑‑ I don't want to say oversight, but more regular feedback about how they're calling these things than maybe in years past? CURTIS SHAW: We always give feedback, but in the Big 12 with the agreement of our ADs and our commissioners, we put in a video review. We're going to review every game within 48 hours of the game and grade it. So every call will be graded in everything we do. This is something that they did in the NCAA Tournament. They started it a few years ago. I have some history with the NBA. They do it after every game, and we thought this was going to be a great way to get feedback. We'll say Curtis Shaw was 15 out of 18 in this game. What were the three calls missed? The referees will get a copy. The coaches get a copy. They'll know we're reviewing it. It gives the referees a chance to go back and look at the three plays that he, quote, missed. And it helps me find tendencies. If Curtis Shaw is 15 out of 18 for five straight games and all of them are blocked charges, I know I have to do something to teach him about blocked charges. So I think what our conference has done with the video feedback will help the referees even more than we used to in the past. Q. How do you expect these rules to improve the game overall, long‑term? CURTIS SHAW: Free flowing, scoring, less physicality on the perimeter. Allow our athletes, which is probably the greatest I've ever seen in my 30 years, to play basketball. Spend more time on the practice floor. I've seen in what we've watched so far, it creates a lot more mid‑range jump shots that right now we're not very good at. Our coaches will tell you, we don't want that shot. We're shooting 35% from 12 feet. We're shooting 34% from the three‑point line. Back up and shoot a three because we get more reward for it. I think we want to see the mid‑range game come back. If you're playing a softer man, if you're playing more zones, which may be a consequence, that is a game that's going to come back. So our 9th, 10th, 11th graders that we're recruiting now will go in the gym and practice the mid‑range shot, practicing the scoring moves in the post as opposed to going into the weight room. So I think we'll get a lot more of the athleticism back in the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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