Case in point, last game hook and hold call as an Ag is getting fouled. Ref stops game, goes to the table, reviews play, other ref reviews play, discussion follows. Refs again review play, discussion follows. Announcers have little or no idea what's going on and make small talk while looking for facts or someone off camera to tell them. Takes 4 minutes to make the decision. Flagrant 1 (Good call BTW). 2 FTs awarded. 7 minutes of dead time. Seems like all this could be done in a more expedited manner.

I get that refs want to get it right - we all do, but it seems the refs are so worried that they stop the game 3 or 4 times to review a foul, foot on the line ( that can be changed after the fact on the next stoppage), shot clock violation, goal tending, etc. Fine, but make a decision and get back to the game!

If a TV time out follows and after a coach calls a timeout, the game could easily have 12 minutes of dead time.

Also seems like teams are getting extra time to shuttle players in and out and for teams to come back on the court after time outs.

Just a slower management of the flow of the game overall.

What do you Ags think?

Yes, it's been very bad. Not sure if specific to our games or across all of college hoops - but stopping to go to the monitor for 2 minutes to make a call three times per half is bad.

Fix what you need to during timeouts. For anything else the call on the floor is good enough.

Reviews do take too long in many cases. There was another play Saturday where it took them over 2 minutes just to decide which player committed the foul.

Pretty short, actually, compared to the stoppages at Blue Bell/Olsen this weekend.

Proposition Joe said:

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Yes, it's been very bad. Not sure if specific to our games or across all of college hoops - but stopping to go to the monitor for 2 minutes to make a call three times per half is bad.

Fix what you need to during timeouts. For anything else the call on the floor is good enough.

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Agreed and yes, it's happening across the sport.

It's one thing soccer has gotten right with continuous play and then adding some time on for roughly what the ref thinks is correct although replay has reared it's ugly head there for scoring plays in the past 3 or 4 years.

PJYoung said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Yes, it's been very bad. Not sure if specific to our games or across all of college hoops - but stopping to go to the monitor for 2 minutes to make a call three times per half is bad.

Fix what you need to during timeouts. For anything else the call on the floor is good enough.

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Agreed and yes, it's happening across the sport.

It's one thing soccer has gotten right with continuous play and then adding some time on for roughly what the ref thinks is correct although replay has reared it's ugly head there for scoring plays in the past 3 or 4 years.

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VAR in the World Cup / NFL reviews just calling down to the ref to adjust the call is where we need to get to. That is done within 30 seconds in soccer and the NFL is adjusting it while the team is in the huddle.

It's insanity on some of these college football and basketball replays

Yes. 60 seconds is an eternity to review. Heck. I'd limit to 30. If not "immediately" wrong, leave it and move on.

I hate the rhythms of the men's game anyway with the whole bonus/ double bonus thing and the "under-x time" timeouts. The women's game time rules (plus advancing a timeout to mid court) are much much better for how the game paces.

It's not even arguable that there's too many stoppages, the question is how to do you fix it. Here's some ideas, some of these I've talked about on other threads:

Level 1 Ideas (slight changes)

- Ditch making goal tending reviewable except for the in the last two minutes of the game and make it reviewable at the table which brings me to my second one
- Have a fourth official who sits at the scorers table with the monitors who handles all non-flagrant-foul reviews: I understand that for high end penalties you want multiple eyes on it to make sure everyone is seeing the same thing, but we don't need that for every single penalty. And the other three officials could keep the players on the court which would cut down on everyone walking to their benches or whatever
- Take another timeout away from each team
- This would go back to the fourth official but either stop reviewing plays at the ends of games for time if the time involved is less than a second OR just have an automatic rollback of .3 every time the clock stops. A human delay is part of the process, so either accept it or automate it to get rid of it.
- Get rid of getting 30 seconds to sub out a player after a 5th foul. This whole performance takes like three minutes now. You get 15 seconds from the moment the official signals who the foul is on.

Level 2 ideas (more extreme changes)

- Change the concept of who possesses the ball on an out of bounds call. Historically whichever team touched it last, the other team has possession. But I think the true spirit of the rule is whichever teams action caused it to go out of bounds should lose possession. There's too many reviews slowing down feeds like it's the zapruder film trying to see if it grazed someone's finger or not. If player A slapped the ball out of player B's hands and it lands out of bounds, then it's out on player A whether it happened to roll off of player B's fingertips or not.

If player A's action didn't immediately cause the ball to go out of bounds, then it reverts to the old rule. So if player A slaps it out of someone's hands but then that player kicks it or it goes off their legs or they have an attempt to re-gather control and fail, then it's out on player B. But there are WAY too many reviews where it's obvious that player A caused the ball to immediately go out of bounds but maybe it grazed someone else along the way.

- Get the coaches off the court. One thing that slows games down is each coach getting a chance to monologue to the officials every time down and demand explanations, call for reviews, etc. Move the coaches box to the other end of the bench or something, enforce the coaching box rules, call more techs if the coaches are leaving their box to talk to the officials while the ball is in play.

- Won't go all the way into this here but change the way fouls work at the ends of games. If all of the stoppages were spread out over two hours it wouldn't be as big of a deal, but the way basketball games end is absolutely ridiculous.

I like the 4th official idea and the moving the coach's box idea

Don't like the oob idea you proposed . It would bring even more subjectivity into the mix. Keep it binary. The 4th official should be able to more quickly determine who last touched the ball.

I don't think it's really subjective at all, or at least not moreso than the current rule. If it's even close you just go by what the rule is now and we're not any worse off, but seems like at least once a game we're slowing down and looking at six angles of a play to see if MAYBE the ball happened to touch the tip of someone's finger when clearly someone else was directly responsible for the ball going out of bounds.

Like player A is going up for a shot, player B swats it into the photographers in the first row, but Ah! maybe it grazed the shorts of player C on the way out! Better go check!

Forget it, player B was the obvious cause of it going out of bounds, player C's contact, even if it happened, did not change the trajectory of the ball, it's out on player B.

I know this is a big change of how we think about the concept of out of bounds, but I think these out of bounds calls are both the most frequent (other than timing) and longest reviews.

bobinator said:

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- Have a fourth official who sits at the scorers table with the monitors who handles all non-flagrant-foul reviews: I understand that for high end penalties you want multiple eyes on it to make sure everyone is seeing the same thing, but we don't need that for every single penalty. And the other three officials could keep the players on the court which would cut down on everyone walking to their benches or whatever

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To me this feels like the quickest and simplest solution to most of the issues, and I'd take it a step further and mirror the NFL (and baseball, I think?) and allow only that 4th official to review and make decisions. Having "more eyes" makes sense in theory, but they are all looking at the same thing, and really it just means you get multiple opinions and more chatter, which slows things down.

Let the 4th guy be at the monitor, he or she reviews the tape and makes the decision. The on-court officials are the ones that have to signal for review, but once they do its done by the 4th person. It would also speed up goal tending calls and 2pt vs 3pt calls.

Quote:

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- This would go back to the fourth official but either stop reviewing plays at the ends of games for time if the time involved is less than a second OR just have an automatic rollback of .3 every time the clock stops. A human delay is part of the process, so either accept it or automate it to get rid of it.

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This also, it takes WAY TOO LONG to figure out if there is 4.5 or 4.9 seconds left on the clock. Just an automatic rollback of however long (.3, .5, 1.0, whatever) and move on. I'd also support that only being allowed in the last minute of each half, all other times the clock is what it is (unless its an obvious situation or malfunction).

Quote:

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- Change the concept of who possesses the ball on an out of bounds call. Historically whichever team touched it last, the other team has possession. But I think the true spirit of the rule is whichever teams action caused it to go out of bounds should lose possession. There's too many reviews slowing down feeds like it's the zapruder film trying to see if it grazed someone's finger or not. If player A slapped the ball out of player B's hands and it lands out of bounds, then it's out on player A whether it happened to roll off of player B's fingertips or not

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This is the only one I don't agree with, as I think it would get too complicated as to define "caused the ball to go out of bounds," and would/could lead to a lot of exceptions and complaints. For example - the Payne block recently (I think it was against Arky) where he swats it down out-of-bounds onto the Arky player who was laying on the floor, thus going off the Arky player and being A&M ball. Payne clearly "caused" that ball to go out of bounds, so it goes back to Arky even though it clearly hit an Arky player out of bounds? Thats tough.

I think you have to just keep the possession rule the way it is and do 1 of 2 things -

1) Limit the review time to 15-20 seconds. If in 15 seconds of watching the film you can't tell who it actually touched, call on the floor stands. Its got to be super obvious on first or second glance to change the call, otherwise you don't. And the review is done by the 4th official.

2) Give each team 1 "possession" challenge per half that can used any time. Other those challenges, issues of possession are never reviewable.

And do we really need 3 minutes to decide if something was a hook-and-hold?

I get player safety and all that... But I doubt this is really what the player want, the coaches want, or the fans want. So if you see it, call it... but you don't need to go to the monitor.

The crazy thing is so much of officiating is completely subjective and can have massive impacts on the game and the bulk of that we accept the "call it as they see it".

The rule right now is clear, the last team that touches the ball before it goes oob loses possession. When you get into who physically caused the ball to go on it's oob trajectory then you get into analysis and thus subjectivity . To me it's easier and faster to determine who last touched it vs who caused the ball to be on an oob trajectory. That's all i am saying .

Most of the time it would likely be clear but there would be enough exceptions to probably overall slow things down even more in my opinion

The last couple minutes are the worst. The refs take forever to give the ball to the guy shooting free throws or inbounding the ball.

Not much can be done about it and they get it wrong a fair bit of the time . I think you just have to try to believe that it evens out over time. Often doesn't feel that way but that knife cuts both ways.

Stuff like the no call on Donald Sloan vs UcLa when they were clearly all over his arm on a critical late game shot …I dunno what to say about that other that it smelled of favoritism or the refs were blind. I'd love to think that has been wrung out of the system but I really don't.

It probably doesn't even out over time but you rarely know which side of the ledger you are actually on. We have caught plenty of breaks over the years.

We have caught good breaks over the years . Whether wev'e gotten our fair share is not clear . That one particular bad " break" (UCLA) if you want to call it that was a hard one to forget tho. No guarantee we win that game if the foul was called but to me that was a clear example of bad and obvious whistle swallowing.

I think if this whole sports-wide exercise has taught us it's that the very idea of objectivity is subjective. I get what you're saying. In theory, the rule as-is is clearer. But in practice it isn't. We're spending way too much time in every single game trying to figure out who literally touched the ball last.

But zoom out, what's the actual intent of the rule here? If you cause the ball to go out of bounds, you lose the ball. Someone's fingertip grazing the ball or the ball grazing their shorts or whatever didn't make the ball go out of bounds. The player that hit the ball did. That's the intent of this rule right?

So let's apply it, and let's give the officials room to use some common sense.

You don't necessarily have to apply this as an across-the-board rule change, it could just be used in those cases that right now are going to review. Maybe the primary rule is still the same, but if the official can't determine last touch because it was so close, then maybe make the first reaction to be rule on whose action caused it to go out. If that's indeterminate as well then we can still go to review. But a bunch of these are obvious.

As a longtime basketball fan at every level, I do not mind the reviews to get a call right. So many times replay proved refs wrong. With basketball being such a physical and fast game with so many bang, bang plays, it's nice to see them try to get it right.

I didn't read the thread, but there are 6 TV timeouts, and each team has their timeout allotment. So, after those stoppages, a few injuries, and there usually is only like 2-3 times they really stop for a long amount of time to review something. Other than close games that come down to the wire where timeouts and reviews can get crazy, it's never bothered me.

Not sure if it would work well in practice, but I'd like to see replays have to be determined within 20 seconds of reviewing the footage. If it isn't obvious on the first look of the replay, it's not that big of a deal. Exceptions for extreme flagrant fouls and end-of-game buzzer beaters.

There's two things about replays that need separate considerations.

• The actual amount of time it takes to review the video - In many cases this really isn't all that much time. Sometimes it is, and that needs to be fixed also.
• The time it takes to get in and out of a review. The players go to the benches, then we have to get them back out of their huddles, this whole administrative process often takes a lot longer than the review itself. If we're going to review something, let's go ahead and make that the next media timeout no matter when it happens.

The second one actually brings up another point, and its one of the rare things Hop and I completely agree on, this whole routine of both teams setting up a temporary bench on the court is ridiculous. Either have your huddle on the bench or everyone can stand. We don't need a bunch of guys in suits running around with little chairs and then having to mop up the court afterwards and everything. Get on with it.

All of this said, my guess is that it's a problem that the networks don't see as a problem because those stoppages create more space for advertising. Nevermind if the game is slowly dying as a result.

Yes, eliminate the mini time out aspect of it. "Everyone stay where you are, I'm going to check the video for 20 seconds (if it can't be done during a normal timeout)".

My biggest issue with reviews right now is how reviewing goaltending is overly helpful for the defense. It has to be called in order for it to be reviewed, so they're calling it more often to try to get it right. But if it's called incorrectly and the offensive team had regained possession after the block (which we tend to do), then they've lost a possession they would have otherwise had.

Would make it better if they could review missed goaltending calls at the next stoppage, and only award points if the offense didn't otherwise score on that possession. That would probably reduce the overcalled goaltends.

Would have to amend that for the last two minutes, as there possibly isn't a next stoppage.

gougler08 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Yes, it's been very bad. Not sure if specific to our games or across all of college hoops - but stopping to go to the monitor for 2 minutes to make a call three times per half is bad.

Fix what you need to during timeouts. For anything else the call on the floor is good enough.

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Agreed and yes, it's happening across the sport.

It's one thing soccer has gotten right with continuous play and then adding some time on for roughly what the ref thinks is correct although replay has reared it's ugly head there for scoring plays in the past 3 or 4 years.

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VAR in the World Cup / NFL reviews just calling down to the ref to adjust the call is where we need to get to. That is done within 30 seconds in soccer and the NFL is adjusting it while the team is in the huddle.

It's insanity on some of these college football and basketball replays

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The premier league is way longer than 30 seconds. Can be 2-3 minutes which sucks.

To me the goaltending issue was a solution to a problem that didn't exist. For all of the issues college basketball has that we need some innovative solutions to, nobody was talking about goaltending calls being some kind of blight on the game.

And yeah, like you pointed out, the way they're reviewed now is dumb. Just scratch them from being reviewable at all until inside the last four minutes of the game or something.

It's one thing to change a 3 pointer to a 2 pointer or vice versa at the next media timeout because that's not stealing a possession from anyone.

PJYoung said:

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gougler08 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Yes, it's been very bad. Not sure if specific to our games or across all of college hoops - but stopping to go to the monitor for 2 minutes to make a call three times per half is bad.

Fix what you need to during timeouts. For anything else the call on the floor is good enough.

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Agreed and yes, it's happening across the sport.

It's one thing soccer has gotten right with continuous play and then adding some time on for roughly what the ref thinks is correct although replay has reared it's ugly head there for scoring plays in the past 3 or 4 years.

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VAR in the World Cup / NFL reviews just calling down to the ref to adjust the call is where we need to get to. That is done within 30 seconds in soccer and the NFL is adjusting it while the team is in the huddle.

It's insanity on some of these college football and basketball replays

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The premier league is way longer than 30 seconds. Can be 2-3 minutes which sucks.

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Yes, they need to go to the semi-auto VAR that the World Cup used, was quick (and won't mess things up like English refs tend to do anyways)

Adding replay was a Pandora's box. It should never have been adopted in any sport, as we still have controversial officiating decisions and game endings. Of course, I guess high-definition TV killed any chance we could go ever go back and eliminate it.

I don't want to belabor this too much but in your scenario what do you do when a a ball is heading oob and someone saves it and throws the ball off an opponent's body and then it goes oob. The guy that did the throwing may have made a very heady play to win possession for his team but he also ultimately caused the trajectory to change and bounce off the opponent. Another scenario, two guys fighting for a rebound / loose ball and you can't tell who actually touched it last but it clearly touches one or the other team's jersey ( just for sake of discussion) before it goes oob. Something like that becomes a possession arrow situation or current rules stand?

halfastros81 said:

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I don't want to belabor this too much but in your scenario what do you do when a a ball is heading oob and someone saves it and throws the ball off an opponent's body and then it goes oob. The guy that did the throwing may have made a very heady play to win possession for his team but he also ultimately caused the trajectory to change and bounce off the opponent. Another scenario, two guys fighting for a rebound / loose ball and you can't tell who actually touched it last but it clearly touches one or the other team's jersey ( just for sake of discussion) before it goes oob. Something like that becomes a possession arrow situation or current rules stand?

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I actually like bob's proposal and would support such a rule. I think in the situations you have brought up, the rules would have to distinguish between incidental contact (player A swats ball from B's hands, but it rolls off B's fingertips) or direct contact (ball is saved and thrown off the leg of a player inbounds before bouncing out or ball is blocked and lands on player out of bounds). If both players are pursuing a loose ball, contact from either would be "direct".

Yeah also if he throws it off someone who's standing in bounds then his action didn't immediately cause it to go out of bounds. It had to bounce off something else first before it went out of bounds so it would revert to the current rule.

As for the second, if it's too close to call on who made it go out of bounds then you go to the current rule and if that's too close I say it goes to the arrow or review if it's late. So in the scenario where it clearly hit someone's jersey then the other team gets the ball.

All good discussion imo.

The one review I hate is the goal tending tgst gets reviewed after game aaction has ensued.

What's happened a couple of times is goal tending was called and we got credit for the basket, but then later they take it away but in the immediate action after the goal tend we had gotten the rebound so we technically lost a possesion because we lost the basket and didn't get to play on after the rebound because they had originally called it goal tending

Yeah this was discussed further up, it's absurd.