For the second year in a row, attempts to redraw the three-point line and the lane in basketball have been defeated.

The NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Rules Committees have pushed for a deeper three-point line. Division III has objected. In fact, a search of NCAA News and NCAA releases on the topic reveals many times this topic has been raised and rejected.

This point in the process seems key: “Because the basketball rules committees’ proposals involve financial impact (institutions would have to budget for new court lines), the divisions may consider the recommended changes separately and, on a division-specific basis, ask the Executive Committee not to apply the change.”

And here we are, still at 19-foot-9. That’s because this is not free. A member of the rules committee told Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis in a recent column that stripping and repainting three-point lines would run about $15,000 per school.

While that seems high to some, throw in a trapezoidal lane and you’re still running into a lot of money — money which Division III schools can’t afford.

Let’s just say it is $15,000 to strip and repaint each three-point line and lane. In a spot-check of Division III basketball budgets, that could run anywhere from 17% to 60% of a school’s combined men’s and women’s basketball budget, according to our analysis of numbers provided to the U.S. Department of Education for the 2003-04 school year.

I pulled 20 Division III schools at random and checked what their institutional budget was for men’s and women’s basketball, then their overall athletics budget. Four of the schools were state schools, in keeping with the nature of the Division III membership. On average, the $15,000 would take up 27% of the schools’ basketball budgets, or 5% of the overall budget. (It’s higher at schools that don’t have football.) And if you don’t think that 5% is a big deal, consider that next time you’re asked to go without an annual raise.

I’m not personally against moving the three-point line to 20-foot-6, which is the most recently used number. But I’m against unfunded mandates, and unless the NCAA would like to filter down some money to the Division III schools as a grant to repaint their floors, I’m against the effort.

And you should be too.