ACC officials ready to see impact of rules changes

ATLANTA -- When the college basketball season begins this week, fans will notice a few changes in the way the games are played. The alterations are expected to make the games more high scoring and shorten the time of the games.

"The new rules will impact the game," Georgia Tech head coach Brian Gregory said. "The big question is will they be consistently enforced, and that's the challenge. That's why the job as an official is very difficult, and some of the rules are making it even more difficult for them. I'm not letting them off the hook, but it's going to be hard."

The most visible change will be to the shot clock, which is being reduced from 35 to 30 seconds. It was last changed from 45 to 35 seconds in 1993-94. The NCAA women already use a 30-second clock.

"I personally don't think that going from 35 to 30 is that big a difference," North Carolina head coach Roy Williams said. "When I started out, we had no clock, then went to 45, and that was a big difference. And 45 to 35 was quite a difference, also. I'm not so sure that 35 to 30 is that big a deal."

Virginia head coach Tony Bennett isn't so sure.

"When we've played against really good defenses, it's hard to get quick shots, it's hard to score early," he said. "I think you're going to see more situations where it's single digits on the shot clock, and you're going to have to keep your composure and look to get shots."

The arc underneath the basket will be extended another foot, from 3 feet to 4 feet. The NCAA has data that shows such a change will further reduce the number of collisions in a game that has become more physical as players get bigger and stronger.

New rules also eliminate the five-second closely guarded dribble rule, which removes a reward for intense defensive effort. Other changes will penalize players for faking fouls and making minor technical fouls (delay of game, hanging on the rim) a one-shot infraction. Players can now be able to dunk during warmups. Officials also will be allowed to use replay to determine shot clock violations on baskets that were made at the buzzer.

"The jury is still out as to what effect it's going to have on the game," Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton said.

The other change is in timeouts. Teams can only use three timeouts in the second half. And any timeout called within 30 seconds of a media stoppage will be used as the media break. Those scheduled breaks occur around the 16-, 12-, eight- and four-minute marks.

Also, coaches no will longer be able to call timeouts during a live ball situation and will have 15 seconds rather than 20 to insert a new player when someone fouls out.

Georgia Tech has conducted numerous scrimmages with ACC officials to get a feel for how the rules are going to be enforced.

"We've done a lot more scrimmages with officials than we've ever done before, just to get a handle and a feel for the new rules," Gregory said. "We haven't brought in local guys, we've brought in ACC officials, so we're getting the way it's going to be called."

This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 9:33 PM with the headline "ACC officials ready to see impact of rules changes ."