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NCAA panel proposes techs for flopping players

May. 7, 2021
NCAA panel proposes techs for flopping players

College basketball is tired of the flopping. And now, floppers could pay.

The NCAA men's basketball rules committee has proposed a rule that would assess a technical foul to players who "fake being fouled." It would be a Class B technical foul, so the opposing team would get one free throw attempt and the player would not be assessed a personal foul.

Under the current rules, a player is warned after flopping for the first time in a game. According to a release from the NCAA, if the rule is approved by the NCAA playing rules oversight panel on June 3, players could get hit with a technical foul for "falling to the court despite not being contacted after field goal attempts, dribblers who bob their heads to simulate being contacted and players who act like they were the recipient of contact despite not being touched."

"After two years of using warnings, we didn't feel like we were getting the results that we wanted," Tad Boyle, committee chair and head coach at Colorado, said in a statement. "We are trying to get flopping out of our game. We're asking the officials to call them when they happen."

The rules committee has also proposed a six-foul limit for players during the 2022 NIT. The NIT has previously been used for experimental rule changes. According to the committee, a player would be disqualified after committing four fouls in a half or six fouls overall, whichever happens first. So a player with one foul in the first half would foul out after committing an additional four fouls in the second half but a player with three fouls would have an additional three fouls to use after halftime.

Under the current five-foul limit, many coaches will pull a player after he commits his second foul in the first half.

"It is an out-of-the box proposal," Boyle said. "What is great about having a committee is you never know what will take off or what won't. Certainly, we weren't going to support it as a permanent rule without experimenting with it first."

Another proposal would allow the use of live stats and live video on the bench next season if conferences apply for a waiver to implement the technology. The usage would only be applicable in conference games. Multiple leagues, including the Mountain West, have experimented with the use of live or archived video in games through tablets and other devices in recent years.

The committee also proposed the use of a shot clock that shows tenths of a second and a rule that would let called timeouts replace some media timeouts to limit the disruption of game flow.


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