[M&M Guy]

craiglaw - welcome to the forum. Hopefully you'll learn a lot and pass that wealth of information on to your fellow fans.

The principles involving whether a foul would be called a block or a charge are essentially the same at the high school and college level. A defender must first obtain "legal guarding position", which involves having both feet on the floor, and facing the opponent. Once LGP has been obtained, that defender can move, within certain limitations, such as parallel to the path of the player with the ball, or into the path of the offensive player, provided they get to that spot before the offensive player leaves the floor. In simple terms, if you have the defender get to the spot, then the offensive player leaves the floor, then there's the collision, the offensive player is responsible for the contact, and it could be a charge. If you have the offensive player leave the floor, then the defender gets to the spot, then the collision, the defender is responsible for the contact, and it could be a blocking foul.

In the past, the women's college game held the belief that a defender standing under the basket cannot be defending, but is only there to draw the charge, so any contact on a drive down the lane would be either ruled incidental or a block, no matter how long they had legal guarding position. (The exception was if the defender had that same postion on a drive along the endline, the offensive player could still be called for the charge.) That rule changed this past season to allow the offensive player to be called for a charge anywhere on the floor, even underneath the basket.

As far as your observation on less charges being called now - it could simply be the players adjusting over the course of the season from going all out on drives, to being a little more selective on when they drive.