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Arizona State women\u2019s basketball coach Molly Miller, second from left, and senior guard Marley Washenitz huddle up at a recent practice at Weatherup Center in Tempe. (Photo Courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics)<\/p>\n
TEMPE \u2013 Improvement to the flow of college basketball was at the center of a recent NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel\u2019s decision to approve rule changes for the sport heading into the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
The approved changes were preceded by recommendations made from both the NCAA Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Basketball Committees in May.<\/p>\n
Among the most notable of the approved changes \u2013 and seeming to take clear inspiration from both the NBA and WNBA version of the rule \u2013 the men and women\u2019s games are implementing their own take on a coach\u2019s challenge that will initiate video review.<\/p>\n
Optimism remains that this can make the sport a more entertaining product as a whole and minimize the presence of time-consuming disruptions from ref-inititated replay reviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think (these changes) will add to another layer of excitement \u2013 maybe drama,\u201d said Marley Washenitz, senior transfer guard on the Arizona State women\u2019s basketball team. \u201c(The game) is always going to be evolving and changing and hopefully for the better.\u201d <\/p>\n
Different from previous seasons, the ability for officials to initiate reviews will be significantly hampered. On the men\u2019s side, officials will no longer be able to review out-of-bounds calls unless directed through a coach\u2019s challenge. Other uses of replay like shot clock violations, timing mistakes and more can still be initiated by official review, however.<\/p>\n
On the women\u2019s side, officials can\u2019t initiate reviews on the approved types of plays that can be challenged by a coach at any point in a game, unless they need to determine if a foul call was given to the correct player.<\/p>\n
The rules that can be challenged by a coach at any point of the game include the following, according to a NCAA release:<\/p>\n
WOMEN\u2019S RULES<\/strong><\/p>\n MEN\u2019S RULES<\/strong><\/p>\n But, there is a slight twist. <\/p>\n For the men, a coach\u2019s challenge can only be relied upon if the requesting team has a timeout. A successful challenge will also yield an additional video review challenge at the team\u2019s disposal for the rest of the game and overtime. An unsuccessful challenge means the team can\u2019t use a challenge for the rest of the game.<\/p>\n For the women, a timeout is not required for replay review. A technical foul will be assessed to a requesting bench if a challenge fails, however.<\/p>\n For years, both the Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Basketball Rules Committees have met in the offseason to recommend rule tweaks with the intent to improve the state of their respective games. <\/p>\n But the latest changes might represent the most impactful modification to the rules since the 2013-14 season, where an expansive use of replay review was approved \u2013 notoriously giving officials the ability to use replay review in the last two minutes of games in regulation or overtime to confirm a shot-clock violation or discover which player was the last to touch a ball before it went out of bounds.<\/p>\n The intent to improve upon this rule might be clear, but not everyone is convinced just yet.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it improves the flow, because there\u2019s stoppage and no one likes stoppage,\u201d ASU women\u2019s associate basketball coach Stephanie Norman said. \u201cBut, I think at the end of the day people want to get (calls) right.\u201d<\/p>\n Some fans might disagree with her, after the sport has long been at the mercy of a replay system that has been shown to substantially slow down even the most exciting of college basketball games.<\/p>\n At the conclusion of the 2025 NCAA Men\u2019s Basketball Tournament round of 32, the Wall Street Journal calculated that there had been 52 reviews conducted by officials, lasting for 111 minutes and 23 seconds \u2013 about three full games worth of reviews.<\/p>\n Heading into the upcoming season, it seems those in charge are proponents of evolving the rules for the better. And eventually, possibly making them standard across the board.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should have a unified way that we have instant replay,\u201d ASU athletics director Graham Rossini said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be playing from the same rules.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow Cronkite News: Phoenix Sports on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n
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