Saturday, January 4, 2014

Turning college basketball into a game of HORSE

With the ridiculous and unreasonable promotion and protection of the three-point shot, college basketball is slowly but surely degenerating into a glorified game of HORSE. Watch the players warming up. Even a lot of the post guys are standing out at the arc shooting 3-point shots, like that is the only thing that matters. And the way the rules are skewed these days, it is virtually the only thing that counts. We reward the taking of a low-percentage shot by making it count more and exacting a greater penalty for guarding it (the 3-shot foul). It ought to be the other way around. If you are dumb enough to take a low-percentage shot, then you should be on your own. Make fouling a shot from the arc to be a one-shot foul, and see how it changes the game. Perimeter defenses would immediately become must more aggressive - and THAT would encourage ball movement and penetration. Instead, we once again changed the rules this year to take away hand-checks, forcing perimeter defenders to back off just a hair and giving three-point shooters that much more leeway to blast away.

All this from the old American Basketball Association. Thanks guys! I wish you had given us the red, white and blue basketballs and kept the three-point shot.

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