FAYETTEVILLE — The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel has approved multiple rule changes for college basketball in 2024-25.
Recommendations came from the men’s and women’s basketball rules committees. Expanded video replay and protecting officials were changes both committees initiated.
Earlier this year, the NCAA directed the committees to evaluate sportsmanship and ethical conduct rules.
Details of changes the panel approved:
Men’s and women’s basketball rule changes
• Suspension for abuse, threats toward officials: Players, coaches and bench personnel will be penalized for threatening actions toward officials. Anyone who “disrespectfully contacts an official or makes a threat of physical intimidation or harm, to include pushing, shoving, spitting or attempting to make physical contact with an official” and is ejected will be penalized a one-game suspension for the following game.
• Expanded video replay: Expanded video replay was approved for reviewing if a player’s foot last touching the court was inbounds on a made shot before time expired. Prior to the rule change, the play was only reviewable if an out-of-bounds call was made during live action by an official. Because this type of play is already reviewed to see if the shot was released prior to the clock expiring, this additional replay gives officials “another tool to get the call right.”
If a player’s foot is determined to have been out of bounds, the exact time of the violation will be placed on the game clock by officials. If a shot is made with time remaining on the game clock, video review will not occur.
Experimental rule for 2025 National Invitation Tournament
• Appealing out-of-bounds calls: The rules committee suggested an experimental rule for the 2025 NIT that allows coaches to appeal out-of-bounds calls for video replay review in the final two minutes of games. It would eliminate officials’ voluntary ability to review out-of-bounds calls in the final two minutes.
Reviews of such calls, per the recommendation, would correlate to timeouts remaining. If an out-of-bounds call is overturned, the team would retain a timeout, but a review failure would result in a lost timeout.
In the instance a team does not have any timeouts remaining, the coach could still appeal the call. But if the challenge fails, the team would be assessed an excessive timeout technical foul, which would give the opponent two free throws and possession of the ball.
According to an NCAA press release, the recommendation was made from men’s basketball coaches “which expressed interest in challenging calls using video replay review.” It would be a step toward modeling the NBA more similarly, which allows two coach’s challenges per game.
The recommendation was approved by the rules committee and is pending approval from the NIT Board.
Immediate video replay for women’s basketball off-ball fouls during shots
• Off-ball foul call review: In the instance an off-ball foul is called around the same time a field goal or free-throw attempt occurs, officials must immediately administer a video replay review to determine if the shot should count.
It is an alteration of a rules change from last year that called for defensive foul reviews to be administered during the next media timeout.
With the update, the rules committee, “felt that it was more consistent for all replay reviews to be conducted at the same time when determining whether the field goal or free throw should count.”