3 FTs proposal

[A Pennsylvania Coach]

Originally Posted by fullor30

I've seen games(mostly at lower levels) where Coach K wannabe's will hack away to the biteer end, down 15 with 30 seconds to go.

Exception, not the rule.

The "ball instead of FTs" doesn't work either; it just incentivizes the defense to take bigger and bigger risks in hopes of a steal, with no downside. And eventually the officials tired of playing 2 seconds at a time will let something go that should be called, et cetera.

The problem with the steep penalty (3 FTs at 13+, or a time runoff) is that when the penalty is steep, some officials may factor that into their judgment of what to call. I'm talking about the same logic that led to the 5-yard face mask penalty. For the grasp and release, 15 yards seemed too punitive, so it would get passed on sometimes. Then for the grasp, slight twist, release, well that's close to the same so don't call that either. The 5-yard option gives officials a way to correct it without being punitive.

The real solution is a shot clock. But for budgetary reasons, that won't be mandated by Fed for quite some time. Until then, late game fouling is a necessary evil.