What am I missing here?
 

New NCAA (men) rule concerning free throws where the bottom spot closest to the endline must remain vacant (NCAA 8.4.a). The first time I put enforced this at a juco scrimmage last Fri, the players and coaches looked at me like I was crazy. It does look VERY strange by the way. The question though is this...8.4 indicates that a maximum of six players (four opponents of the free-thrower and two teammates of the free-thrower) are permitted in the lane. 8.5.6. then goes on to state that no player shall be permitted to occupy the fourth space (closest to the free thrower). Well do the math...if nobody is in the bottom spot and nobody is in the top spot, then how can you have 6 players in the lane? Or is this just saying that nobody can be in the "new" fourth spot (not counting the spot on the endline since this is now off limits) which would actually be ABOVE the last lane mark and not really a true "lane space"?

In any event I let 6 in the lane which puts two right on top of the free thrower and is a bit awkward...will take some getting used to...

Yeah, I used it yesterday. One of the guys just asked, "We're playing like the girls now?"

8.5.6. then goes on to state that no player shall be permitted to occupy the fourth space (closest to the free thrower). [/QUOTE]I didn't notice it until you pointed it out. Maybe they simply forgot to remove it?

I didn't notice it until you pointed it out. Maybe they simply forgot to remove it?[/QUOTE]

The only other thing I can think of is that what they are referring to as the "fourth spot" is the area above the top lane marker - kind of goes without saying that no one can be in there though...makes more sense that they forgot to remove it, although that is a pretty major miss.....

Didn't it look strange? One of the coaches looked at it the first time we lined up and walked almost all the way down towards the endline to check it out with this confused look on his face...pretty funny....

We discussed this a few weeks back, and I think the concensus was that the committee simply forgot to remove the reference to the top spot when the moved everyone up a spot.

Coaches are on the rules committee. What else do you expect.

Peace