Hoopsville Rant: Ten-second violation comes to women’s basketball

I will freely admit that when collegiate women’s basketball first starting experimenting with the ten-second violation, I was leery. Why would we change what is an interesting quirk in the women’s game? I also contended that if they do add the violation they should consider changing the shot clock to 35-seconds like the men’s game.

However, the more I thought about it and the more I talked to coaches in men’s and women’s basketball the more I realized it was crazy there wasn’t a ten second violation! Women’s college basketball is the only level of basketball that didn’t have the violation. Of course the rule should be implemented! Now others have complained that the ten-second violation would increase the number of turnovers and make games between a superior and inferior teams even more lopsided. I haven’t seen any of that and people seem to forget that women’s basketball players were already playing with the ten-second violation in high school. They don’t have to adjust to anything.

And so it has been done… and they didn’t change the shot clock, either… and I am fine with that. In fact, I think we need to shorten the men’s clock.

Say what?

Yeah. The men’s shot clock is the longest in any level of basketball – NBA, international, high school and now even college. Why are teams being given five more seconds than at most levels to get the ball to the rim? The extra time isn’t needed.

But the best reason may have come from some coaches I talked to in Atlanta last year. At the time the common conversation about the game and its rules was how scoring was way down and had been falling for years. Many suggested changes to improve this including the emphasis on calling hand checking and grabbing by defenders (something I fully support and will rant about in the coming weeks).

However, the shot clock idea really stuck out for me. If we want more scoring on the college level, take five seconds off the clock. That will add a number of additional possessions to most college games at all three divisions. Furthermore, it will reward good defenses by forcing offenses to take shots sooner or get the ball up the court faster.

How can you not be in favor of this? Why should the men’s collegiate game be the slowest on any level? Why can’t we boost scoring by adding more possessions to the game?

Some will argue, as they have prior to the women adding the ten-second violation, that it will only increase turnovers and make the game sloppy. How? These players have come up from the high school level where the shot clock is shorter. The same on the women’s side with the ten-second violation: How will the new violation add to turnovers when the players are already used to the violation in the first place?

So let’s embrace the idea of a ten-second violation in women’s basketball and call for a 30-second shot clock in the men’s game. And while we are at it, why in the world does men’s and women’s basketball have different rules? You know what, let’s save that for another rant.

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