Notice NCAA tournament blatant disregard for 6-foot closely guarded distance?

[Mark Padgett]

One of my pet peeves with the FED rules is that we're supposed to be enforcing the six foot rule when a defender is just standing within six feet of the ball handler even if he's looking at the ceiling and picking his nose. To me, the term "closely guarded" means the defender is actually "guarding" the guy.

Now, I realize it would be virtually impossible to have the rule changed to only be enforced if, in the opinion of the official, the defender was actually putting some defensive pressure on the ball handler, so I don't have a good suggestion on how to change the rule, unless it's to just zap it.

I do agree with those of you who feel that if you have a shot clock, there's no need to have a 10 second back court rule, so maybe we can include the five second rule in that same argument.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

I do agree with those of you who feel that if you have a shot clock, there's no need to have a 10 second back court rule, so maybe we can include the five second rule in that same argument.

I don't agree.

It is a lot easier for an offense to play keep-away if they can stay in the backcourt for the entire shotclock. The 10 count forces the team to get the ball over halfcourt by 10....which, if they can't, gives the defense an opportunity to force a turnover. It reduces the size of the court the offense has to work with. Take away the 10, and you shift the balance of play a little more in favor of the offense. You could certainly debate whether that is a good thing or not or even whether the effect is enough to even matter.

[APG]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

I do agree with those of you who feel that if you have a shot clock, there's no need to have a 10 second back court rule, so maybe we can include the five second rule in that same argument.

I don't agree with getting rid of the 10 second count. If you have a shot clock I actually believe we should make it a hard count like the NBA rather than start a new count if the ball goes out of bounds or the coach/player buys his team out of a violation and calls for timeout.