3-Point Line Moves Back 12" in 2008

[Old Titan]

Our freshmen perimeter players have this to look forward to in 2008:

NCAA Rules Committee Approves New 3-Pt Line for 2008

[tmh8286]

Personally, I think it's goofy to change it.  Why don't they raise the basket to 11 feet while they're at it.  At least I'm glad they didn't use the international line.  Let's try to keep a national identity with SOMETHING!  If they ever start measuring the court in meters, I'll quit watching basketball.

I think this means I'll have to reprise my calculations using the Inverse Square Law to predict the drop in shooting percentage when the line is moved back.  Maybe this time I'll actually get some stats to tell me if I'm right!

[ORUTerry]

The women's basketball rules committee did not adopt the change and will keep the 3-point line at 19 feet, 9 inches.

I guess college courts will have two lines - one for men and one for women. And if a college plays on a pro court, you could have a myriad of lines.

[ORUTerry]

Okay, what are the consequences (intended and unintended) of this decision (though it won't be final until the vote on May 25)? The obivious consequence is a lower success rate in three-point shooting. More emphasis on the inside game? Easy drives to the basket as teams attempt to guard a three-point line farther from the basket?

[ORUTerry]

This will favor teams with shooters that have extended range. Wonder where we could find a recruit like that???? 

[tmh8286]

This reminds me of some info I posted from Ken Pomeroy a year or so ago regarding the reliance on the three point shot in college basketball, and how it's changed since the inception of the three point line.  Here's the data through 2004 (Ken's post was in 2005) in two forms:

3 point attempts as a percentage of all shot attempts

1987...15.7

1988...17.8

1989...19.9

1990...21.5

1991...22.8

1992...24.0

1993...25.4

1994...27.2

1995...28.8

1996...29.2

1997...29.8

1998...30.2

1999...30.5

2000...30.8

2001...31.2

2002...32.0

2003...32.1

2004...32.8

I don't know if the perception is that the three has gotten too "easy", and they are trying to encourage play under the basket or what.

[tmh8286]

Here is the official release from the NCAA, dated today:

INDIANAPOLIS ? After years of study and consideration, the Men?s Basketball Rules Committee voted to recommend extending the three-point line to 20 feet, 9 inches starting with the 2008-09 season. The dimensions of the lane will remain unchanged.

?We believe this alteration will provide more space between the perimeter players and post players,? said Larry Keating, chair and senior associate athletics director at the University of Kansas. ?There has been a tremendous amount of data collection and discussion on this issue and we believe this is the best option for the game and its future.?

The Women?s Basketball Rules Committee, which met concurrently with the men?s committee in Indianapolis May 1-3, will maintain the current three-point line, which is 19 feet, 9 inches from the basket.

?Our committee supports the efforts of the men?s committee to improve its game,? said Ronda Seagraves, chair of the women?s committee and associate athletics director at Southwestern University (Texas). ?At this time, the current court dimensions are meeting the needs of the women?s game, and we did not feel a change would be good for our game.?

The proposal and all recommendations from the committees are not final until approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel, which will meet by conference call May 25.

The proposed change to the three-point line comes following the 20th year of the line?s implementation, which was first introduced into men?s intercollegiate play for the 1986-87 season. The men?s committee began studying a longer three-point shot in 1996 with an experimental rule. Since that time, the committee has tested the line at both 20 feet, 6 inches, the distance used in International competition, and 20 feet, 9 inches, which is one foot removed from the current line. Experimental data collected by the men?s committee over the last decade indicates that shooting percentages will not be significantly different from the extended distances.

?Since the three-point line was implemented, the game has changed,? Keating said. ?The student-athletes playing are bigger and stronger and we need to adjust for that. The data we have collected since 1996 helped the committee make an informed decision.?

The one-year implementation period is required by the NCAA to allow for member institutions to make adjustments to their court markings. Playing rules are the same for Divisions I, II and III. 

The women?s committee approved its points of emphasis for the upcoming season. Displacement, traveling, unsportsmanlike behavior and legal guarding position are the areas the committee will direct women?s officials to pay particular attention to next season.

     

On the men?s side, the committee will focus on the block or charge call, particularly near the goal; coaches? behavior and enforcement of the coaching box; rough post play; and palming the ball.

In other significant men?s actions, the committee:

Voted to alter its free throw alignment. This change will eliminate the first lane space nearest the basket on each side of the lane and using the present second, third and fourth lane space on each side of the lane as an alignment for free throws.

Will allow the use of the courtside monitor to determine whether a flagrant foul occurred and require the use of the monitor to assess the situation if a fight is declared.

The women?s committee also approved a recommendation to rewrite its rules that cover technical fouls. The guideline about the legal guarding position under the basket will be deleted, making the legal guarding position the same for the entire court.

[ORUTerry]

Experimental data collected by the men?s committee over the last decade indicates that shooting percentages will not be significantly different from the extended distances.

Isn't that inherently counterintuitive? Shouldn't extending the distance have at least SOME negative effect on shooting percentages?

[tmh8286]

Voted to alter its free throw alignment. This change will eliminate the first lane space nearest the basket on each side of the lane and using the present second, third and fourth lane space on each side of the lane as an alignment for free throws.

If I'm not mistaken, the women have been using that alignment lining up for free throws for at least a year.  

[tmh8286]

Isn't that inherently counterintuitive? Shouldn't extending the distance have at least SOME negative effect on shooting percentages?

I thought the same thing, Big T - you're just begging for me to whip out the Inverse Square Law and put this controversy to bed, aren't you???

[Old Titan]

If I'm not mistaken, the women have been using that alignment lining up for free throws for at least a year.  

If that's the case, you're going to see a LOT of high-leaping types come curling down the outside of the lane from the top of the key once the free throw goes up, trying to slip inside that big gap on the block for an offensive rebound and/or tip-in.

Which means the offensive players lined up on the lane are going to try and come over the top of the interior defensive players to prevent them from leaving their feet for said rebound.

Which is going to lead to foul calls galore for "over the back".

Which is going to lead to more free throws...

[ORUTerry]

I know this is off subject a bit, but speaking of free throws... my son and I were discussing Wilt Chamberlain the other night and he pointed out that Wilt (among other things) changed the rules regarding how free throws are taken. Seems that Wilt had the same problem that a lot of big men have - he could not make free throws consistently. His answer? Dunk the ball. Yep. Seems he would take a running jump and just dunk the ball before landing in the lane. It had a dramatic effect on his shooting percentage - and the rules. The next year they changed the rule making it mandatory players take their shots from the line.

[Mike Minyard]

Our freshmen perimeter players have this to look forward to in 2008:

NCAA Rules Committee Approves New 3-Pt Line for 2008

This only makes it harder on someone to win a car during the United Ford halftime contest!!!

I don't like the change at all!!!

[orumom]

Does that mean that the price of the insurance will go down?

[ORUTerry]

Interesting story from CBS Sportsline:

Shooting the 3 is about to get harder 

May 4, 2007

By Gary Parrish

CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

When's the last time you were on a college basketball court?

I don't mean played on it.

I mean just on it, as in walked on it, stood on it, talked to somebody on it. Because if it wasn't too long ago -- and if you aren't used to seeing it everyday -- you probably recognized the same thing most people recognize immediately, that the 3-point line is way closer than it appears on television.

We sit on our couch and watch Chris Lofton make four consecutive 3-pointers, and we are amazed. But if you were at the game and somebody allowed you to stand in the exact spots from which those jumpers were hoisted, you'd realize a clean look at a college 3-pointer is fairly simple to make. Put another way, if I gave you 10 shots at Cameron Indoor Stadium and 10 shots at the local fair, you'd make a lower percentage at the local fair -- meaning it's easier to score three points in the ACC than it is to win your girlfriend a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal.

But it's about to get harder.

The NCAA men's basketball rules committee approved a measure Thursday to move the line from 19 feet, 9 inches to 20 feet, 9 inches beginning with the 2008-09 season. Assuming it's approved by the playing rules oversight committee on May 25 -- which is about as safe as assuming Britney Spears is lip syncing on stage -- it would mark the first major change to 3-pointers since their adoption 20 years ago.

And that, my friends, is mostly good news, though it still won't make Bob Knight happy. He was even unhappy last season when Texas Tech used five 3-pointers in the second half to upset Texas A&M because the legendary coach fundamentally hates 3-pointers, the 3-point line, the Three Musketeers, Three's Company, Three Amigos and all three steps you-know-who from that Lynyrd Skynyrd song wanted that man-with-a-gun-in-his-hand to give him, I'm guessing.

"That doesn't make me feel any better about 3-point shots," Knight said after beating A&M. "I don't like it, didn't like it, not going to like it."

So a 3-pointer a foot further from the basket won't be enough to change Knight's position because he despises 3-pointers regardless the distance. But all things considered, this is a positive move given how it will help separate the good shooters from the average shooters (think of it like high rough on a golf course) and create better spacing to in turn put more value on players with a solid in-between game -- meaning the two-dribble, pull-up jumper just might make a comeback.

I like the two-dribble, pull-up jumper.

So put me down as somebody who likes the change.

Which is not to suggest there aren't negatives attached.

One is how the move might encourage more teams to play a zone defense because if a zone is designed to force opponents to shoot 3-pointers, it's reasonable to think more teams will become favorable of zones considering 3-pointers should now by definition be more difficult to make. Meanwhile, the schools that already predominantly play zone will likely enjoy a larger degree of success.

Advantage: Syracuse.

"Jim Boeheim, right now, is very happy," UCLA coach Ben Howland told CBS SportsLine.com on Thursday afternoon. "In college basketball, you don't have the same skill level as you do in the NBA, so you're going to see a lot more zone."

And a lot less complimentary tuitions.

That's the other negative, of course, that it'll kill those students who shoot 3-pointers for free tuition at halftimes of games. Another foot might be enough to eliminate a reasonable chance at success for a 5-foot-7 biology major. So while Boeheim should benefit more than any other coach, the people at SallieMae are probably smiling, too.

[tmh8286]

That's the other negative, of course, that it'll kill those students who shoot 3-pointers for free tuition at halftimes of games. Another foot might be enough to eliminate a reasonable chance at success for a 5-foot-7 biology major. So while Boeheim should benefit more than any other coach, the people at SallieMae are probably smiling, too.

He didn't even mention all of the cars they won't be giving away . . .

[Old Titan]

Hey, as much as I respect the likes of Ben Howland and Jim Boeheim, I'm not so sure the rule change is going to lead to more effective zones - just more attempts at zone.

Look, good shooters are still going to be good shooters one foot further back, especially once they start working on shots from that distance. 

It's actually the perimeter people in the zone defense that may have a tougher job now:  do you stay back in the zone to prevent the drive and the pass inside, or do you go out on the perimeter - a foot farther than before - to get a hand in the face of the shooter?  And if you do go out there and the guy with the ball drives, your help defense is now more strung out than before because the other shooters are a foot farther out, too!

Here's what I predict:  if a team can shoot from outside, like a Vanderbilt, they're going to take and make the same number of shots they're taking and making now - maybe more, if they now have fewer hands in their face.

And teams who aren't that great shooting from the perimeter may now have less pressured looks from the 3-point line when they face a zone.  I would rather shoot an uncontested 21-footer than a 20-footer with a hand in may face - wouldn't you?

Unless teams are athletic enough and long enough to really put pressure on good perimeter shooters when playing a zone, I'm not so sure they wouldn't be better off playing good, solid man-to-man instead...

[tmh8286]

Terry and I have talked about the fact that some shooters, like Ken Tutt and Moses Ehambe, seem to actually shoot better from a step back from the current line.  The three point line seems to create a boundary across which many defenders don't want to cross, giving shooters a clearer shot when they're two or three feet behind the line. 

By pushing the three point line out another foot it MAY provide a physiologic extension of the invisible boundary, in effect causing a loss of open shots from longer range.  At least that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.